Lymethriving.comhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog
Thriving with and beyond Lyme Disease. About Lymethriving - Jenny Rush, Jenny Swart RushMon, 08 Jan 2018 21:48:45 +0000en-UShourly1Avoiding the feeling of helplessnesshttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/avoiding-feeling-helplessness/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/avoiding-feeling-helplessness/#respondThu, 04 May 2017 22:19:48 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2883We have not tired of witnessing this phenomenon yet; the tidal pool filling up and emptying out every day. The winding river down the side of our yard is part of this wonder. At low tide it is empty except for the small stream of fresh water that flows down into the pool, and then at high tide […]

]]>We have not tired of witnessing this phenomenon yet; the tidal pool filling up and emptying out every day. The winding river down the side of our yard is part of this wonder. At low tide it is empty except for the small stream of fresh water that flows down into the pool, and then at high tide it floods its banks as the ocean pushes inland and up the river bed. It is a morning routine to wander down to the pool for Thandi to get her morning walk. Sometimes we are there at sunrise, and the hush of the morning that is filled with bird songs is always a treat…not so much when it’s been raining for days on end.

I was offered an opportunity to discover something about myself on the banks of this river. The tide was low and Thandi was standing in the river bed drinking from the trickle of water. She LOVES doing this. I don’t know why. She needs to slop through the mud every day to get that drink, that very long drink. I have surrendered to this pleasure of hers, sometimes thinking that perhaps there is some particular mineral she is ingesting that supports her body. She has always seemed to know what’s best for her.

As she drank, I noticed a squirrel dash across the opposite bank. It was not running the way they usually run, that bouncy movement, rather it was close to the ground with a straight body. It ran over the edge of the bank and disappeared from sight, but then another movement caught my eye. It was a mink (I checked this out online later to confirm), running in exactly the same direction, with the same body posture, and it also vanished from sight at the same place the squirrel had. A second after it disappeared, both squirrel and mink dashed up the opposite bank of the river and the mink caught and killed the squirrel. I was frozen in place as I witnessed this event, and my heart was pounding as I watched the mink run back in the direction it had come from. I was worrying that perhaps it was a fisher cat and that perhaps it might consider attacking Thandi. With my adrenaline pumping, I readied myself to charge into the muddy river bed to protect her, not knowing whether I actually could or not, but it wasn’t necessary. Thandi missed the entire event and eventually made her way out and up onto the bank with me. I walked her back to the house on shaky legs and plopped into a chair on the deck to process the experience.

I kept thinking, “life is harsh”, and it had certainly felt like a harsh way to begin the day. Despite being a nature lover, I really don’t like witnessing this aspect of life. Even after my heart rate had returned to normal and the day unfolded, I was still struck by the experience, so I contemplated it further. I noticed that in the moment of the event I had decided that life is harsh, but in reality, life is just life. This is actually a totally normal part of life. But there was something deeper than this, deeper than the thoughts about the event, it was the feeling that accompanied it. It was uncomfortable, definitely something I wanted to avoid feeling. It was the feeling of helplessness.

We would so much like to control life. If we could then we would be able to avoid uncomfortable feelings. If we could control life we would never get sick. But the reality is we can’t control it anymore than I could have controlled the mink chasing after and killing that little squirrel.

I reminded myself to experience life as it is, to truly allow myself to experience this feeling-sensation of helplessness, to open to it. What arose out of that was an experience that is akin to compassion. It’s like my heart split open a bit, but not in a wounded sort of way, just an embracing, aching sort of way. There was definitely love.

I wonder how often I have avoided allowing myself to feel helpless, and how much energy I have expended in my efforts to push it away or circumvent a situation in an effort to spare myself the hurt of it, or to give my ego mind a false sense of control and safety. When we avoid a feeling our lives get smaller. It’s the only way to stay ‘safe’, setting closer and high safe guards. But living in a small safe bubble also excludes the multiple and diverse opportunities for a rich and full authentic life.

We have to be willing to be vulnerable to life as it is, to the feelings it offers that allow us to know the fullness of what is. This vulnerability is our authentic power. Helplessness, when allowed to be felt, is an access to our authentic power. Imagine that.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/avoiding-feeling-helplessness/feed/0Chronic Illness and Politicshttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/chronic-illness-politics/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/chronic-illness-politics/#commentsMon, 30 Jan 2017 20:45:32 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2855Our current political climate is giving me a powerful refresher course in the chronic illness experience. It’s been a few years since I was last dealing with the experience of chronic illness. I’ve had a bump in the road here and there, but that week in week out, month in month out crawl through the […]

]]>Our current political climate is giving me a powerful refresher course in the chronic illness experience. It’s been a few years since I was last dealing with the experience of chronic illness. I’ve had a bump in the road here and there, but that week in week out, month in month out crawl through the days has faded from my everyday memories. Sometimes I can revisit part of the experience, but it’s brief. I remember that as I made my way through illness I had begun to understand that the hardest part of it all was the emotions, that ultimately the lessons were about myself, my beliefs, my way of being. And I uncovered an ever present peace.

But I am reliving it now, the emotional stuff, albeit with a different awareness. But it’s basically the same. Where before I was finding myself thinking about illness all day and any moment I was awake during the night, I am now thinking about our administration and our country, all day and at any moment I am awake during the night. It’s heavy, it’s uncomfortable, it’s upsetting, it’s depressing. It occurred to me the other day that it felt the same as when I was ill, this obsessing over every detail, living inside one topic the majority of the time.

I found during illness that when I was heart-centered and identified with Source or Self, there was much less drama in my thoughts. There was still a body expressing illness to address every day, but the context had shifted. It was an illness experience arising within me, but was not the whole of me. There was just something to embrace (not to be confused with liking) and to surrender to (not to be confused with giving in to). I have the opportunity to embrace and surrender again, this time it’s to the experience of political chaos and not illness.

When we stop resisting what ‘already is’ our energy stops being drained into the fight. We are able to see so much more, discover so much about ourselves, and in that non-chaotic space, new pathways are revealed and solutions arise. We also become clear about who we are, truly are (and it’s not a political party) and our matching self-expression becomes effortless. We begin to take actions that are FOR something and not just against something else. The ‘for’ actions, when fueled by love are stimulating, nourishing and sustainable. The ‘against’ actions tend to be about right/wrong, better than/worse than and are depleting. Certainly there are times in life when we jump into ‘against’, but we have the power to choose where we come from the majority of the time.

This morning I gave myself a time-out. I sat outside in the chilly air and closed my eyes. Although there were thoughts running through my head, I kept my attention on my actual experience. I noticed the sensation of my body, the feel of the chair, and the sounds of the birds. I noticed that there was no separation between the sensations and sounds and the field of awareness they arose in. It was all just one and it was peaceful. And I allowed it. I thought of all the political unrest and was aware of the feelings that arose, and it felt like my heart was breaking, and I allowed it, and it was peaceful.

A little later I took Thandi for a walk on the beach. It felt better than days prior when we walked as I thought, and thought, and thought. There were a lot of people out this morning, about 6 of them, all with dogs. Everyone was mellow, all the dogs were happy and getting along well, the conversations were casual and comfortable, and the people were playing with each others dogs. Thandi was feeling pretty fluffed up and loved with all the attention she got because she was lying down for a rest.

Back in the parking lot I noticed the empty cars of the other dog owners. There were stickers on a few of them that revealed a little about the different owners: NRA, religion, Republican, Democratic…and some others. We can get along. Yes we can…

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/chronic-illness-politics/feed/4Contemplating the Election of 2016http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/contemplating-election-2016/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/contemplating-election-2016/#respondThu, 13 Oct 2016 15:52:33 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2771Mostly my focus is on emotional healing through the experiences provided by chronic illness. At the chore of it, it’s always about “Who am I?” and this election season is providing significant opportunities for a deeper understanding of who we are. These passed few months, and particularly the passed couple of weeks, I have had […]

]]>Mostly my focus is on emotional healing through the experiences provided by chronic illness. At the chore of it, it’s always about “Who am I?” and this election season is providing significant opportunities for a deeper understanding of who we are.

These passed few months, and particularly the passed couple of weeks, I have had a hard time posting on my Lymethriving page because I have been so immersed in our political fire storm. I have watched and read news reports ad nauseum, noticing the bias in reporting of network channels, switching to other channels and finding bias there too. I have read articles posted by friends who are conservative and friends who are liberal, and noticed that their posts are also mostly biased. Perhaps bias isn’t the right word in all cases because a few seem to have done thorough research and undergone some deep introspection, and are taking a stand for what they believe in most, regardless of the flaws of their candidate.

We also see postings on social media by ‘big thinkers’ and spiritual leaders, reminding us to look within to see what it is about ourselves that we need to learn. Those reminders are on point, but without context aren’t always helpful. As I vacillate between being part of the ‘he/she is right, he/she is wrong’ and contemplating the events from a broader perspective, I feel hopeful despite this mess of an election, or perhaps….because of it.

Transformation does not always unfold gracefully, and certainly in my personal experience, each time I discovered something newly about myself there first came an all out war of resistance from my ego-mind. When ego’s position is challenged, it goes into a fight for its life. Its rightness is the fuel for its perceived survival.

This country is ripe for change. Most people are sick of: politics as usual, lies, war, terrorism, and biases (all of them). I say most and not all because there are those who continue to stand for separation and peace through war. But at the end of the day, each person wants life to look a certain way so that they can feel safe, respected and happy, no matter how misguided their means to an end might be.

When I look at our candidates, no matter how much I have read or heard about them, I am clear that I don’t really know them. I have never met them or talked to them. I only know what the media puts forward and I notice that the opinions I form about them are filtered through my life’s perspective. I also notice that my response to each of them is strongly flavored by issues I feel most passionate about.

For me it is human freedoms, a whole gamut of rights that covers gender equality, religious freedom, marriage equality, race equality…and on and on. It’s not the only thing I’m passionate about, but I experience it as my ‘non-negotiable’. When I explore it for myself, within myself, I see it as a road to peace, world peace. And here’s why: if each individual discovers for themselves their innate worthiness, their actions in life are informed by this deep knowing. One can’t know their true value and not honor it in others. The uncovering of this knowing comes through noticing the self-imposed boundaries (all ego-based) on our Self expression, bringing non-judgmental understanding to these boundaries, and allowing the energy of them to dissipate in the compassion of this understanding. The more we do this work within ourselves, the greater our understanding of the behavior we see in those around us.

Like it or not, our humanity is being reflected back to us by everyone around us, and yes, that includes Trump and Clinton. Before you stop reading, consider this…I am not suggesting that we are all taking the same actions as the candidates are (reports of lying, corruption, sexual abusive and the rest of the nauseating list). I am pointing to the emotions that they experience, fueled by their ego-mind’s narrative, that informs their actions. None of us is exempt from this humanness, however, when we are willing to notice our behavior, we can mature our response to life in a way that is respectful and honoring of ourselves and others.

It was only a few years ago that I uncovered a self-imposed boundary to my own self expression, a belief that I wasn’t good enough. Up until I saw it, my actions were informed by this belief. Without consciously knowing it, I wanted to manipulate others to behave a certain way (or just avoid them) so that I didn’t have to experience the emotion of this belief and I tried to over-achieve so that others would think I was good enough. Those are just two of many examples. The point is, I was living with knee jerk reactions to circumstances in life because I was unaware of this belief. This is not who I am, it’s not who anyone is at their core, however, until we are willing to take a good look at ourselves, we will forever stand in judgement of others and resist our own personal growth. With understanding comes forgiveness, and forgiveness does not preclude being responsible for our actions or for cleaning up the mess we created along the way.

The ego-mind wants to dominate to survive. Does Clinton dominate or control by manipulating contributors to her foundation? Does she dominate or control by being part of a primary that was reportedly rigged? Does Trump dominate or control by being sexually aggressive? Does he dominate or control by playing to people’s fears? The point is that there is an underlying human emotion that informs these actions. Our similarity, our sameness, is the informing human emotion, not the outward action. When we have ‘healed’ an emotional wound of our own, truly healed it, we begin to recognize the source of behaviors in ourselves and others, and the recognition comes without resistance to it, it comes with compassion.

Before the #NeverTrump (sexual predator, fear monger, bully) and #CrookedHillary (liar, murderer, corrupt) readers jump up and down saying, “What do you think we should do, look the other way? be okay with this? sing Kumbaya?”, just stop. We can all take a firm stand for what is right, and we can do it without spewing venom at each other. When we own our own humanity we can be a tough love stand, and we know we are holding that stand cleanly when we aren’t suffering and hating. Suffering and hating deteriorates our own experience of life.

So what is this rambling all about, and what is the hopeful thing I mentioned way at the beginning? When we are willing to look at ourselves we can transform our relationship to, and our experience of, life and all people. This incredibly explosive and ugly election process is evoking many uncomfortable emotions in all of us. Those emotions are coming from within us. The whole country is in an uproar because so many emotions and issues are on the table. What can we learn about our own selves if we take responsibility for the source of our emotions, and I assure you, it is not the candidates. They are pushing our buttons. How can we tell if it’s our unresolved ‘stuff’ that is being provoked or if it’s just part of our tough love stand for our country and life? You will recognize it. A tough love stand does not come with suffering, it comes with understanding and an unshakeable commitment that is respectful and honoring, and an ego-based reaction comes with venom and righteousness and noticeable resistance. One is sustainable and nourishing, the other is exhausting and eats away at our quality of life.

And by the way, neither is wrong nor right at the absolute level of consciousness. This is aimed at the relative level of human experience. This country wants change. This election is dismantling things as we know them. Things are changing. In the discomfort of the change is the opportunity to grow, individually and collectively. May we all have the courage to honestly look within so that our outward actions reflect love, respect, dignity and unity.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/contemplating-election-2016/feed/0It’s All Energyhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/its-all-energy/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/its-all-energy/#commentsSun, 11 Sep 2016 19:54:24 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2751This particular Abraham quote is one of my favorites, and yet I have avoided posting it because without a bit of context, it tends to piss people off. I invite you to read it anyway, and then even if you are irritated, read further. It’s definitely worth exploring because it puts you directly in the […]

]]>This particular Abraham quote is one of my favorites, and yet I have avoided posting it because without a bit of context, it tends to piss people off. I invite you to read it anyway, and then even if you are irritated, read further. It’s definitely worth exploring because it puts you directly in the driver’s seat of your life.

“Don’t get lost in the diagnosis, the medicine, or in the statistics about what somebody else did about it. If you don’t feel good, it’s because you’re not thinking in a way that allows the Energy to flow. You could just get really, really mad at someone you love and make every muscle in your body stiff. And you would ask,”Why does my body feel this way?” And we say, because you’ve had a Vibrational tug-of-war going on…Stop looking for anything other than your mental and emotional state of being as answers to why you feel how you feel in your body. It is all Vibrational - no exception! And when you get that, then it doesn’t matter what diagnosis has been given to you - it doesn’t matter - it’s temporary.” ~ Abraham

One of the things I kept hearing myself say after I became well was, “It was never about the illness in the first place!” I can assure you I was surprised to hear myself say this. And, reading the quote above reminds me of this realization. So here is how I experienced it. There was a named illness for all my body’s sensations and blood test results. And there were protocols to follow to address them all. However, as I went through the process of addressing my emotional stuff, something else happened. I could literally feel the weight lifted with each issues’ resolution. And with each resolution, or ‘completion’, I was aware of a corresponding shift in my way of being. And what I mean by ‘way of being’ is how I was responding to life. Ways of being that had been my default were: being a victim, being unworthy, being judgmental, being fearful…not all the time but often enough to significantly impact how I was experiencing life, but now I was beginning to respond differently, with less agitation, more compassion, and less judgment….and not all the time…I’m not a saint.

One example of a tug-of-war that stopped was around following my protocols. I had been fearful of the illness and as a result, every pill I took was to get rid of what I was afraid of, the illness, and I also hated taking every pill. The root fear was of death. But as I shifted my way of being into self-worth, protocols became a way of honoring myself. I began to follow them because I finally began to feel and BE that my body was worthy of all the kindness of nutrition, supplements and support, that I was deserving. Moving from fear to love is an energetic and vibrational shift.

And our way of being informs our choices in life. If we are being worthy, we will make choices that are aligned with worthiness. If we are being loving, we will behave and take actions that are aligned with love. We flavor all we do with the energy of our beingness.

If we look at extraordinary examples of healing, like Anita Moorjani, we can see how her energy shift resulted in healing the body. If you aren’t familiar with her, Anita was in a coma at the end of life due to cancer. She had a near death experience, had the realization that she was not her body, but rather that which is aware of her body, and her energy shifted into alignment with that, resulting in spontaneous healing that astonished the medical community. She is not the only example.

Most of us don’t have that type of dramatic healing experience, we tend to work through our emotional healing and maturing over time. Perhaps that serves us in ways we can’t understand in the present moment.

It’s also important to remember that illness is not a failure. If it is indeed a result of energetic blockages, then the illness experience becomes the avenue through which we distinguish where we aren’t flowing. It (illness) can be recontextualized as a road map to self realization. How cool is that!

And the good news is that it’s not rocket science. A blockage is simply where we are not in the flow, when there is an absence of ease. There is always an emotion tied to it, like a flag waving to us saying, “Bring love and understanding here.” All we have to bring to the table is a willingness to be honest with ourselves about what we are thinking, if it’s actually the truth and how we may be benefiting from it. And benefiting can look differently than you may think. In my case the benefit of being ill was that I got to rest, finally, after decades of non-stop busyness. I had to dig for that bit of truth, and when I distinguished it, didn’t have to change or fix it, but finally was able to give myself permission to rest as desired, sick or well. And that created energetic flow. When we are willing to give up a fixed position on something, what becomes available is another point of view(s) and different experience(s) around the exact same situation. And we may have to repeat as needed until we begin to experience flow.

Every cell in our body is energy, and we can influence it with thoughts that we align to. So if you start thinking “I am well” but your way of being isn’t aligned to that, the predominant influence on your body is your way of being, not your thoughts. You can also have a thought of “I am sick” but have a way of being that is totally different, and that different way of being will be the influencer.

It is all vibrational, energetic. And it doesn’t preclude following protocols and being under the care of a health professional. It’s all inclusive. Everywhere we go, there we are….vibrating.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/its-all-energy/feed/4Be Kind For Lymehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/be-kind-for-lyme/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/be-kind-for-lyme/#respondWed, 01 Jun 2016 19:55:49 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2697An interview on Emotional and Spiritual Healing Be Kind for Lyme is the do good, feel good movement! They challenge people to random acts of kindness; and to post about it with video/pics/stories. Holly Roesing and Mary Ann Mazzarella are the amazing women who began the #bekindforlyme Movement. Sharing stories of kindness, while spreading Lyme […]

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/be-kind-for-lyme/feed/0Oil, a Ball and some Fishhookshttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/ball-oil-fishhooks/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/ball-oil-fishhooks/#respondWed, 01 Jun 2016 16:23:17 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2692This might be a strange title for a posting on how to flow with life and not get stuck in the suffering. Let me elaborate. We are often in conversation about allowing ourselves to open to the experience of life as it is, to allow the feelings that correlate to different experiences, and to notice […]

]]>This might be a strange title for a posting on how to flow with life and not get stuck in the suffering. Let me elaborate.

We are often in conversation about allowing ourselves to open to the experience of life as it is, to allow the feelings that correlate to different experiences, and to notice how we suffer when we add a story to an unpleasant experience. We have also talked a lot about how experiences from way back in our past remain in our current day to day life because of the story that continues to loop in our thoughts about it, despite the fact that the actual event is long since over. These stories are the source of our suffering.

So what do oil, a ball and some fishhooks have to do with it? They are the analogy. Oil represents the flow of life, the ball represents an experience, and the fishhooks represent a story(ies) about the experience. If you take a glass ball about the size of a soft ball, cover it with oil and try to hold it in one hand with your little finger facing the ground, it slips out of your grasp. This is how an experience without a story moves through our lives when it has no story attached to it. The flow of life just moves it through us. Now, if you take that same ball and glue fishhooks to it, and then hold it, no matter how much oil you pour over the ball, it will remain easily (and painfully) in your hand. This is what happens when we add a story to a life experience.

Here’s an example. A friend lets you down and your experience is disappointment. Without a story you feel the disappointment and it moves through. In that same scenario, we can also add a story such as; I must not be important, he/she doesn’t care about me. More than likely we will walk around and replay the story to ourselves, because this is what we humans do (we’re so cute that way). That’s the fishhook part. When we are willing to take an honest look to distinguish what story we are adding to an experience, we will notice the fishhooks we have attached, and if we are really being honest, we will also recognize the stories for what they are; our interpretation, a story, NOT the truth. When we see them for what they are, they dissolve and the oil has the ball slip through our hand with ease…and we move on.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with our life experiences. There is only choice. And we are free to choose whatever we want. However, when we have the tools to distinguish what we are doing as a normal human being, we provide ourselves with the power to choose. And this is self-empowerment.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/ball-oil-fishhooks/feed/0Stop the Sufferinghttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stop-the-suffering/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stop-the-suffering/#respondSun, 13 Mar 2016 16:23:52 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2652I might be the only person I know who hasn’t watched Grey’s Anatomy…until now. It was only last week that I began on Season 1, Episode 1…and I’m officially in binge watch mode. After two weeks of putting more mileage on my car than I normally do in four months, with multiple drives back and […]

]]>I might be the only person I know who hasn’t watched Grey’s Anatomy…until now. It was only last week that I began on Season 1, Episode 1…and I’m officially in binge watch mode. After two weeks of putting more mileage on my car than I normally do in four months, with multiple drives back and forth to the vet clinic almost an hour away, several trips back and forth to airports and the train station, late nights and early mornings, saying good-bye to our beloved Ben, attending a retreat in Connecticut and a concert in Boston, along with the normal day to day workings of my life, I am home alone for an entire day without any commitments. And I am binge watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Season 2, and Cristina brought me to my knees. A tough, ambitious, driven surgical resident who shows no emotion other her unbounded passion for surgical opportunities, she collapsed from the complications of an ectopic pregnancy and undergoes surgery. During her recovery she finally breaks down, crying uncontrollably. She is so distraught because she can’t stop crying…she NEVER allows herself to cry. Kneeling at the end of her bed she screams at her resident friends to, “Make it stop!!! Sedate me or something!!!” I was ugly crying, and somehow vacillating between her agony and the laughter that I couldn’t contain, and then back into crying.

It’s the laughter of recognition that opens up an access to the depth of love felt in compassion. Cristina portrays her suffering brilliantly and reveals why it is we suffer. Her agony is not in feeling those emotions that are finally being released, it is in the incredible effort put forth to resist them. And don’t we often do whatever we can to avoid feeling the uncomfortable stuff? We see her later, lying quietly in bed with tears gently running down her cheeks. She had surrendered, even if just temporarily, to life as it is, and in the humbleness of vulnerability, allows herself to be comforted. I cried even more, at the sweetness of what was finally revealed, her humanity, our humanity.

What an intense reminder of how to stop the suffering we experience in life. Feeling our emotions as they are, without attaching a narrative or interpretation about the emotions, liberates us into the flow of life. It helps us move through what is here now and into whatever is next, it leaves our minds out of the equation and has us living fully in our hearts. It is living authentically. It is living courageously, walking the path that is life exactly as it is. It is how to stop the suffering.

Hats of to Shonda Rhimes for her brilliant writing, and to inspired directing and acting.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stop-the-suffering/feed/0A Lesson in Leavinghttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-lesson-in-leaving/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-lesson-in-leaving/#commentsTue, 01 Mar 2016 18:05:09 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2645There were three non-negotiable requirements for the next dog we were to adopt: Both our girls had to fall in love with the same dog It had to be a medium sized dog It had to be a short haired dog And that’s how we ended up with Ben. Nicole and Samantha both fell in […]

]]>There were three non-negotiable requirements for the next dog we were to adopt:

Both our girls had to fall in love with the same dog

It had to be a medium sized dog

It had to be a short haired dog

And that’s how we ended up with Ben. Nicole and Samantha both fell in love with the pup that had large paws and long hair. Our ‘medium-sized, short-haired’ dog grew to 95 lbs of long-haired fluff and love. And he was perfect.

We loved his fluffiness, his obsession with frisbee catching, and his extraordinary gentle and loving nature. We loved how he vocalized and how he was a lapdog. We loved watching him swim and cherished the tight bond between Thandi and Ben, our dynamic duo who shared food, water, and sleeping spots. He was very much the family baby, but despite his ‘babyness’, was an intimidating guardian of family and home to those he didn’t know.

He was also a wonderful teacher. Ben taught by example, as dogs do so well. He demonstrated loyalty, unconditional love, tireless companionship, living in the moment and enjoying life just as it is.

Ben was almost 8 1/2 yrs old when he was diagnosed with an inoperable spinal tumor. It truly is a blessing that his health issues lasted only 3 months.

For me, one of his greatest lesson was in his leaving. In the stress and demands of his last few months there was the deep caring that comes in tending to a loved one, but in the hours leading up to his passing, when there was no more to do, no more ‘fixes’ to attempt, there was just the overwhelming and uninhibited expression of love. It was expressed in giggles over joyful memories, in a little song that was sung, and in rivers of tears. Grief is such a profound and deep expression of love.

When he was finally at rest I was left wondering how often it is that we have all our attention on the ‘doing’ in life and miss out experiencing the one thing every person is drawn toward, love. Love can look messy and leave us feeling vulnerable, but so what. An expression of love is always less tiring that the suppression of it. It breaks our hearts open, it allows for the flow that life is. And what if we bring our hearts to the ‘doing’? How rich, how generous, how healing…

Thank you Ben, Fluffy Man, Baby Ben, Buddy, for being such a beautiful teacher and loving companion to all of us. Your physical presence will be missed, but you will remain so well loved.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-lesson-in-leaving/feed/2An Old Piano and a New Lessonhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/an-old-piano-and-a-lesson/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/an-old-piano-and-a-lesson/#commentsWed, 03 Feb 2016 16:40:13 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2609The girls were in elementary school when they began piano lessons. We purchased an old upright piano through a music school and it found its home in our playroom. The tinkle of simple practice sessions and newly learned musical pieces floated through the house, usually in cramming sessions before each lesson. Over time the lessons […]

]]>The girls were in elementary school when they began piano lessons. We purchased an old upright piano through a music school and it found its home in our playroom. The tinkle of simple practice sessions and newly learned musical pieces floated through the house, usually in cramming sessions before each lesson.

Over time the lessons faded and the piano remained quietly unused, stoically displaying family photos and a plant or two.

Many times I sat at my computer, phoning various organizations to offer our old piano as a donation. But each time we were faced with a “Yes Please!!” and then the reality of having to cover the cost of moving it ourselves, somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 to $600 dollars. And so the piano remained and I began to think of it as a problem and a nuisance.

Almost 15 years later our house is going through a huge sort out and clean up. There have been countless trips to donation centers, the recycling bin is sweating from heavy usage, a large dumpster is being filled, and Junkluggers took away a large truck load of things for recycling and reusing. And still, there sat the piano.

But I have to say that the huge cleaning out project has coincided (perhaps not accidentally) with some remarkable movement in all areas of our lives. Things are happening fast and easily, old to-do lists are getting shorter and the full schedule seems to facilitate even more being accomplished. And so on Sunday night at 10 PM I placed an ad on Craig’s List, offering our old piano, for free, to anyone willing to organize their own transportation.

By Monday morning at 11 AM I had about 15 responses, and there were a couple of heartfelt ones. Someone offering information about a non-profit that would cover transportation costs, another sharing how their piano had been lost in a house fire, and yet another who felt the piano would be great for their child to learn on. But one woman’s emails caught my attention. She had written twice and her determination just knocked me over. I called her and answered her questions about the history of the piano, it’s overall condition, and when she could pick it up.

At 8 PM Monday evening she arrived in a large truck with four strapping men to move the piano out the house. They were all so happy and excited that it felt like a moving party. I asked them to be especially careful and safe since they had to carry it down two flights of stairs from the front door to the driveway. In less than 10 minutes the piano was safely in the truck, and Christine and I were chatting excitedly about life, the outdoors, and her love of playing the piano since she was young. It turned out that a couple of the men shared her love of music, and as we talked, from the darkness inside the still open truck, music flowed. They were taking turns playing our old piano. I wish they could have stayed longer so we could linger in the sweet sound of the notes.

My gratitude was overflowing. My ‘problem and nuisance’ had evaporated almost instantly, and as it did, I felt a fondness for the piano that I had never experienced before. With the burden of its presence released, it revealed itself for what it was, the possibility of music. For all those years, it sat without complaint as a simple and beautiful possibility. Everything else about it had been a contribution of my mind. And so standing in the driveway, as it’s gift was brought out of remission, I felt such appreciation.

I found myself feeling overwhelmed by the sincere and deep gratitude of this group of people. They were over-joyed at their apparent good luck and were looking forward to making the piano part of a home and were all excited about having opportunities to play it.

And so as we said our goodbyes we were all immersed in profound gratitude, and a group of complete strangers were hugging and smiling and saying thank-you.

And then it was gone. I am very surprised to feel a sense of sadness. Perhaps I have not fully appreciated all the memories that were associated with the old piano, and how it bore witness to our children growing up with us and the parade of pets that maneuvered around it. But there lingers with me that brief interaction with a small group of people who magnified an experience of gratitude. And that is simply music to my heart.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/an-old-piano-and-a-lesson/feed/2One step forward, two steps backhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/one-step-forward-two-steps-back/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/one-step-forward-two-steps-back/#commentsSun, 20 Sep 2015 15:57:17 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2202Being chronically ill often provides the experience of a step forward into feeling better and then falling back into a rush of symptoms. This occurred multiple times with me as I journeyed forward toward wellness and well being. How we respond to this phenomena can greatly impact our quality of life and the path back […]

]]>Being chronically ill often provides the experience of a step forward into feeling better and then falling back into a rush of symptoms. This occurred multiple times with me as I journeyed forward toward wellness and well being. How we respond to this phenomena can greatly impact our quality of life and the path back to taking a step forward.

Consider that most of us are born well. The foundation of our being is solid and balanced and supports the expression of wellness. We go forward living our lives, contributing to the state of our foundation by either nourishing or depleting it, in some combination thereof. We contribute to it with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, nutrition, rest, activity, exposure to chemicals, exposure to pathogens and so on. When we find ourselves unwell, our foundation is uneven, and the symptoms of this are reflected like the cracks in the walls of a building. In all appropriateness, we tend to the symptoms and hopefully, at the same time, work at re-leveling the foundation so that the sealed up cracks in the walls do not reopen.

[For those born into illness, the journey is not about restoring a previously balanced foundation, it is about newly creating a balanced foundation. In either scenario, we are automatically drawn to re-identify with the nature of who we truly are…whole and complete, wellness and well being.]

But re-leveling a foundation takes time and effort. As we address one part of the foundation it has an impact on the whole structure as it resettles on it’s new level. This is the two steps back experience.

In the last year of my illness I had a number of realizations, each one clearing out some belief I’d been carrying around for a good part of my life. There was the instant exhalation at being liberated, each time bringing forward an intense experience of well being. As I responded to life with a new sense of happiness, there were times when my symptoms abated to some degree, at other times I was just less focused on them since my attention was fully on the new realization. But shortly after each of those realizations, I found myself in the two steps back experience. Over time I recognized the pattern and was less fearful of the cycle.

I had a variety of thoughts and beliefs about those cycles, such as; perhaps this was a full on relapse taking me back to square one (it often felt like it), perhaps this was me removing a lumpy ‘object’ from my foundation and everything in the ‘building’ was re-adjusting. I allowed myself to wear each of these ideas like clothing, surrendering to the experience they provided, knowing that neither was right or wrong, just a choice. What I noticed was that the fearful perspective served to take me deeper into identifying with illness, and the loving, compassionate perspective had me identify with my true Self. Since I’m at the source of how I experience life, I preferred to choose compassion. Sometimes I didn’t. I’m perfectly human.

There is always a choice. And we are free to choose. Any choice we make, when surrendered to fully, provides an opportunity for revelation and growth.

To this day I am aware that I’m more sensitive to dietary changes and the ups and downs that come with living a balanced or unbalanced life. Is my body weaker (more sensitive) because of a long term illness? Am I more sensitive because I pay more attention to my physical/emotional experience? Have I evolved out of self-neglect into a more self-honoring way of being? The real answer is, “I don’t know”. But I choose to be open to the possibility that as I continue to develop the muscle of being self-honoring, I will automatically be more aware of the subtle shifts in the expression of wellness and well being. It translates into my life as an experience of kindness to myself.

You are invited to investigate for yourself what supports you in your evolution. Go easy on yourself through the process. You can’t fail at being human.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/one-step-forward-two-steps-back/feed/4Doing it her wayhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/doing-it-her-way/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/doing-it-her-way/#commentsWed, 09 Sep 2015 12:35:34 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=2182It’s been almost a year since my dog, Thandi, was diagnosed with a tumor on her pituitary gland. It’s been a time of focus on feeding her cooked food, supporting her through seizures, and managing a steadily increasing protocol of drugs. She has been teaching me all along. Giving me opportunities to express my love […]

]]>It’s been almost a year since my dog, Thandi, was diagnosed with a tumor on her pituitary gland. It’s been a time of focus on feeding her cooked food, supporting her through seizures, and managing a steadily increasing protocol of drugs. She has been teaching me all along. Giving me opportunities to express my love for her in more ways than I thought possible. We have slept on the floor together many nights and gone through weeks of sleepless nights. Her meds gave her a ravenous appetite (3 full meals a day) and an unquenchable thirst (5 gallons of water a day!)…and the resulting pee breaks every 2 hours, 24 hrs a day at it’s peak. The most noticeable physical side effect of the drugs was the pot belly look of a dog with Cushings Disease.

And then she began to lose weight, 10 lbs. It was easier on her weakening legs. Despite all the challenges she still wanted to take her walk every day, and the walks got slower and shorter until 5 minutes was a good walk for her.

About a month ago she started resisting her meds and so we got more inventive with getting them into her, but dropped the chemo drug. She refused to take it. Then about 2 weeks ago she stopped eating, which meant no meds at all, and she became very thin, lethargic and clearly seemed to be close to the end of life. We celebrated when we found a food she would eat, and were thrilled when she ate 2 pieces of turkey bacon. Since then her eating has been an adventure. One day she eats a couple of handfuls of nuts, another day she eats only 2 scrambled eggs, and then another 4 oz of chicken breast.

It took a while for me to make peace with all of this, to accept her life on her terms, to accept the end of her physical life…and her terms are NO medications and just small meals…and her walks, with her hind legs supported by a scarf after about 10 minutes.

And so in absolute wonder, I witness the unfolding. Without all the meds she feels remarkably better. She is perky and has thoroughly enjoyed all the activity of the past week, which included a lot of family and extended family being around through a family reunion. She is relaxed and sleeps a good part of each day. She no longer has a sway back and distended belly. She eats a little food each day and drinks a normal amount of water. She sleeps through the night most nights. She wants to walk further and accepts the support of a scarf under her belly to support her back legs as they give out, but she wants to keep going. She is still thin but she is so content.

And so I have learned surrender again, accepting that she might or might not have more seizures without the medications, that the tumor might or might not grow faster, that she might or might not lose the use of her hind legs or other bodily functions, that she might or might not die sooner. But I’m sure of one thing, she is happier. Her quality of life is improving and it’s not so important for me to try to extend the length of her life. We just want her to have a good life.

And so as another day begins, it is a pleasure to honor Thandi’s life as she lives it her way and on her terms. And right now she is ready for a walk.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/doing-it-her-way/feed/12Stepping into the unknownhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stepping-into-the-unknown/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stepping-into-the-unknown/#respondWed, 15 Apr 2015 19:58:17 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1568Being physically fit was a constant through my life, even during times when I was heavier than normal or not taking care of myself. Getting to the gym and taking morning runs were totally ingrained into my daily routine. I didn’t care if I felt crappy walking into the gym, I’d just pummeled through a […]

]]>Being physically fit was a constant through my life, even during times when I was heavier than normal or not taking care of myself. Getting to the gym and taking morning runs were totally ingrained into my daily routine. I didn’t care if I felt crappy walking into the gym, I’d just pummeled through a workout anyway. That strenuous lifestyle eventually fell away as I began my journey through chronic illness.

Walking the dogs on the trails remained a constant, not so much as exercise (because my mindset was that walking was a mode of transportation, not exercise), but as fulfilling on an agreement with my dogs that they enjoy this daily pleasure. When I was at my sickest these walks became somewhat sporadic, but they served to keep my joints moving and my blood flowing. Observing the dogs, as they delighted in this ritual, taught me the pleasure of living in the moment. And there were other benefits like sweating to flush my system as I labored up small slopes, and the dispelling of stagnant energy as I enjoyed the outdoors.

By the time I was well I had no interest in the routine activities that kept me fit. The motivating fuel of always needing to prove myself had dissipated when I realized my true Self, and so it was incredibly strange to want to get back into shape physically but have absolutely no drive or motivation to fall back on.

And so physical fitness and physical shape deteriorated as I contemplated this anomaly in my life…for a long time. But I had my baseline of walks which supported the stagnation - “at least I am doing something” I told myself…and I kept contemplating.

Context! It finally dawned on me that what was missing was a new context for the activities that would restore physical fitness. One of my realizations through illness was that the entire illness experience had not been about the illness, it had been about true healing, to become knowingly aware of the consciousness we are, and that tending to my body with protocols was part of that awakening process. So I took that realization and applied it to exercise. What if I didn’t make getting physically fit about the activities? What if I allowed exercise to be an opportunity for mindful discovery of how I relate to my body, express with my body, move my body? What might be revealed along the way? What might I discover? What will the experience be like? What will I let go of and what will I newly embrace?

The answer to all those questions is “I don’t know”.

Today I joined a gym…and so with great anticipation, I step into this unknown.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/stepping-into-the-unknown/feed/0Going with the flowhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/going-with-the-flow/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/going-with-the-flow/#commentsSat, 14 Mar 2015 15:31:26 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1560“Going with the flow” is an expression we often hear and often tell ourselves we are doing. But is it really something we do? Isn’t it perhaps simply a way of being in which we are receiving life as it is without succumbing to the resistance our thoughts entice? This past week I had the […]

]]>“Going with the flow” is an expression we often hear and often tell ourselves we are doing. But is it really something we do? Isn’t it perhaps simply a way of being in which we are receiving life as it is without succumbing to the resistance our thoughts entice?

This past week I had the exquisite pleasure of being on retreat, an entire week devoted to exploring the nature of experience and deepening the knowing of that which we are. Going into the retreat I decided I would just go with the flow and then notice what was revealed. I also decided to re-contextualize what I have believed about ‘choice’, and instead of thinking that it was me (my mind) making choices and in charge of everything, that I would notice how my experience changed when I surrendered the perceived power of the ego to choose, and instead allowed choice to be known simply as a response to any experience life was calling for. In other words, choiceless choice.

It went something like this:

I answered the call of the ‘night-crawler’ and took some long, slow, late night drives along the river and enjoyed looking at the lights reflecting off the water…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of a latte and found it 10 miles away in a Dunkin Donuts (with extra sugar) and I noticed the creaminess of the whole milk, the froth tickling my lips, and the sweetness of the sugar…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of the snow and went snow-shoeing and experienced the silence of the snow, the quiet of the wooded hillsides, the openness of the fields, the effort of hard breathing in my lungs, and the wetness of my shirt as I perspired…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of the daily 2 hour morning meditation sessions and was present to the fatigue from previous nights of interrupted sleep, to the subtle movements in my body as I breathed, to the sounds of myself and others swallowing, to the sensation that is my body, to the thoughts that rise and fall, to the love that emanates from my being…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of the daily 2 hour discussion sessions and immersed into the inquiries and explorations of those things that veil our knowing of our true Selves, experienced the relief as questions evaporated into understanding with the subsequent feeling of roots spreading deeper and wider…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of glasses of wine one evening with a group of people and we swam in laughter, stories and caring…and it was peaceful.

I answered the call of silence and spent hours alone in my room, staring at nothing in particular and being fully present to my entire world that began and ended inside those four little walls…and it was peaceful.

What I noticed was that the less power I gave to my mind, meaning the less I was attached to it as a reflection of who I truly am, the more humbled and expansive I felt. Peace simply can’t be squashed into the finite mind, it exists permanently and eternally as the true nature of that which we are, and regardless of the circumstances, when we are not in resistance, there is peace.

You might think it is only easy to go with the flow of pleasant experiences, but this is not so. My most profound experience of surrender, of going with the flow, was at the depth of my illness experience…and I was instantly at peace.

Go with the flow, surrender to life as it presents itself, and experiment by giving up the belief (even if just for a few hours), that you are choosing. You will be stunned by the grace you are.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/going-with-the-flow/feed/2A sense of well being during illnesshttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-sense-of-well-being-during-illness/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-sense-of-well-being-during-illness/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 15:02:00 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1543In the midst of what once felt like a fight for my life, the last thing I would have wanted to hear was that I was not allowing a sense a well being, or that complaining about my illness might be disallowing improvement. Actually, I might have been angered or insulted in response to those […]

]]>In the midst of what once felt like a fight for my life, the last thing I would have wanted to hear was that I was not allowing a sense a well being, or that complaining about my illness might be disallowing improvement. Actually, I might have been angered or insulted in response to those comments, because ALL my attention was on Lyme disease; researching the illness itself, researching treatments, and trying desperately to not be sick. These activities were what I felt were appropriate and sufficient. And I was sure that being well again would restore my sense of happiness, and so I was doing what I had always done in my very goal oriented life…I had set a goal of getting well and focused my attention on the ins and outs of addressing Lyme disease.

As far too many people know about chronic Lyme, it can completely pull the rug out from under you, sap your last ounce of energy, jumble your cognitive function, leave your skin itching like you’ve rolled around in poison ivy, and leave you in a heap of pain and misery. It was in this very place of despair that I gave up my resistance and fight against being ill, and allowed myself to be, just as I was, letting go of thoughts about what I should have been doing or wanted to be feeling. It was pure surrender…surrender being that ‘thing’ that was on the very bottom of the list of what I had ever wanted to allow myself to experience.

The sense of relief, from such intense energy expenditure on dealing with illness, was extraordinary, and in that moment there was a flow of well being into my experience. It wasn’t new, I didn’t create it, it was the true source of who I (we) am and always had been, but the experience of it had been blocked by my contracted state of resistance. In state of surrender it was ‘allowed’ to flow again. My body was still expressing illness, but I was experiencing a sense of well being inside of which the illness existed. By far, the predominant experience was one of well being.

“We didn’t say: when you feel good you are allowing good, and when you feel bad you are allowing bad (although it may translate into your experience in that way). There is only a Source of Well-being—which you are allowing or not.” ~ Abraham-Hicks

It was a roller coaster ride even after such a profoundly moving realization, and as I went from one deep dive into another, I came to trust this allowing, which included allowing deeply hurtful experiences, long since hidden away, to float to the surface of my consciousness for attention and release. It was like cleaning house.

Sometimes I found myself stuck in a low plateau. I eventually learned that if I focused my attention onto something inspiring or amusing or interesting, I could kick start the movement again. A personal favorite was allowing myself to be completely inspired by documentaries. I enjoyed survival stories and adventures but also watched Food Matters at least 5 different times, learning something new each time and being astounded at the incredible ability of the body to utilize food to support its own healing. And without fail, my sense of well being would become prominent again.

“It is not attention to lack of wellness that makes you sick. It is attention to the lack of many things… Chronic attention to unwanted things holds you in a place of disallowing your physical well-being, as well as disallowing the solutions to other things you are focused upon. If you would focus your attention upon the experience of physical well-being as much as you focus upon the absence of it, not only would your recovery come quickly, but maintaining your physical well-being and balance would also be easy.” ~ Abraham-Hicks

With the illness experience being a lengthy one, I definitely complained. I complained to myself and I sometimes got into groups where I shared and compared complaints. If I got on a roll, I went from complaining about being ill to complaining about many other things in life. It was not an easy time and sometimes it helped to talk it all out. But there was a distinct difference between how I felt when I got into a sea of complaints and swam in them and how I felt when I just vented and moved on.

“Most people do not realize that as they continue to find things to complain about, they disallow their own physical well-being. Many do not realize that before they were complaining about an aching body or a chronic disease, they were complaining about many other things first. It does not matter if the object of your complaint is about someone you are angry with, behavior in others that you believe is wrong, or something wrong with your own physical body. Complaining is complaining, and it disallows improvement.” ~ Abraham-Hicks

None of this is about inauthentically thinking positive thoughts, its about addressing illness with care and love, and also allowing yourself to put your attention on other things that support a sense of well being. Aligning with ‘good’ feeling things and tending to yourself from that better feeling place will impact your body’s response in a helpful way. One of the ‘aha’ moments I had after finally getting well was that the entire journey had not been about illness. The illness was a physical manifestation of the energetic offering I had been over a long course of my life, so while tending to my body was essential, it was equally important, if not more important, to address the emotional baggage that had been in the way of an expression of wellness and well being in my life. My body slowly but surely re-aligned to my refreshed energetic offering, and all the while a sense of well being was immediately available when I stopped and became mindful about the direction of my attention.

I offer this with love as an invitation to investigate and access a sense of well being while tending to the wellness of your body. You are deserving of love and a sense of well being, and it is within your own power to experience it, right now.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-sense-of-well-being-during-illness/feed/1The broader our wheel base, the less we wobble around cornershttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-broader-our-wheel-base-the-less-we-wobble-around-corners/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-broader-our-wheel-base-the-less-we-wobble-around-corners/#respondWed, 05 Nov 2014 18:43:14 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1527When a curve in the road of life topples you over like a little Smart Car taking a sharp turn at 80 mph, brush yourself off and look at how you can broaden your wheel base so that you are more like a Formula 1 racing car that grips the road on the curves. The […]

]]>When a curve in the road of life topples you over like a little Smart Car taking a sharp turn at 80 mph, brush yourself off and look at how you can broaden your wheel base so that you are more like a Formula 1 racing car that grips the road on the curves.

The good news is that we actually are a Formula 1 car, but mostly we are identifying ourselves as a little Smart Car. The more we know and understand the true nature of who we are, the broader our wheel base gets. You will still travel the same road as the Smart Car, feel the same speed and exhileration, navigate the same curves in the road…but how you handle the road becomes vastly different.

How do we be a Formula 1 car?…we begin by noticing where we are believing we are a Smart Car. In life that looks like a belief that is inhibiting our self-expression. Look around, we all have them…I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, (sometimes disguised as I’m better than other people, I know more than other people), I’ll never be a success, it’s too late for me, I can’t get well. The moment we distinguish a belief we have about ourselves, as the untrue story it is, our wheel base broadens.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-broader-our-wheel-base-the-less-we-wobble-around-corners/feed/0Gratitudehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/gratitude/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/gratitude/#respondFri, 31 Oct 2014 02:35:37 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1531“Everything that is today could not be if it were not for that which was before.” ~ Abraham ….and for that which was before, I am grateful. I sit in profound gratitude for the experience of community and friendship in the Lyme community, and for enjoying that in person at the Marie Joseph Spiritual Center […]

]]>“Everything that is today could not be if it were not for that which was before.” ~ Abraham

….and for that which was before, I am grateful.

I sit in profound gratitude for the experience of community and friendship in the Lyme community, and for enjoying that in person at the Marie Joseph Spiritual Center in Biddeford, ME.

We were greeted by the Sisters who took such loving care of us, who tended to us like we were the most special of guests in their home, who took delight in learning new ways of cooking to accommodate our myriad of requests with our plethora of dietary restrictions, who set a vase of yellow roses in our meeting room, who took the time to get to know the retreat participants and were moved by the challenges of our community. For this, I feel gratitude.

Nothing is more moving than being in the presence of authentic self-expression, the generosity of giving and receiving, the immediate experience of family. To witness and be part of, simultaneously, the ebb and flow of a group moving through various ‘spaces’, from the adrenaline infused opening session where travel and illness fatigue went unnoticed amidst the joy of deep conversation, to the following morning session where everyone was slow and low but present and loving, to the kindness of therapeutic yoga in which the group quietened and relaxed, to the second evening’s session that began in silence and in which the softness of love facilitated deep openings and a flow of tears infused with love, and finally into the closing meeting that was filled with the eternal knowing of each other as ourselves. For this, I feel gratitude.

The retreat experience didn’t only occur in the group meetings. It flowed easily into the dining room where friendships were made and deepened over meals, where conversations led to bursts of laughter and unexpected AHA moments, where snippets of people’s lives were revealed and then cherished by all who were privileged to hear them. For this, I feel gratitude.

I cried after I was home, for these friends who lovingly were the canvas on which my love could be painted. Relationships are symbiotic…for this I am profoundly grateful.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/gratitude/feed/0The Universe: infinite to finite to infinitehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-universe-infinite-to-finite-to-infinite/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-universe-infinite-to-finite-to-infinite/#respondSat, 26 Jul 2014 17:22:48 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1513A recent participation in a retreat, focused on the nature of awareness, took me out of mind chatter and into a deeper understanding and knowing of the “I” that we are. I floated peacefully through the weeks that followed, in tearful awe at the beauty of what is. And then as is the human thing […]

]]>A recent participation in a retreat, focused on the nature of awareness, took me out of mind chatter and into a deeper understanding and knowing of the “I” that we are. I floated peacefully through the weeks that followed, in tearful awe at the beauty of what is. And then as is the human thing to do, I began listening to the commentary in my mind, and in particular, to a question that it kept posing. And so as I contemplated finding an answer, I revisited Monkey Mind Land.

My mind was grappling with ‘knowing’ that all objects are perceived in three dimensional space by the mind that arises in one dimensional time, and was left asking the question, “Does that mean that the universe is finite?” It kept coming up with a yes, which was incredibly disappointing since I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t relish looking at a night sky and the experiencing the knowing of endlessness.

And so I posed this question to one of my teachers, Rupert Spira, for clarification and examination, to release me from the resistance I was experiencing around this question. Being led back into my own experience of awareness, he kept asking me questions until that moment that I had my own answer in the experience of knowing it myself. And wow, did the tears flow!

Infinite awareness (that is who we are) is expressed into our ‘reality’ as mind and matter in the four dimensions of time and space. The nature of awareness is unbounded, open, non-resistant, all encompassing, infinite love. We experience awareness in our feelings as peace, love and happiness, in our bodies as sensations, in our minds as perceptions and thoughts. What we are experiencing as the universe (through seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, perceiving, feeling, and thinking) is the expression of infinite awareness into this time/space reality. So anything and everything in our experience is an expression of infinite love. IT is of the “I” that we are and always have been.

So with regard to my question about a finite universe…the universe is a perception of the expression of infinite love. It’s quality and nature is infinite, and it is OF the I that I am. The beauty of this is so exquisite it is beyond the description of words, it is so much more beautiful than simply being matter that goes on indefinitely, and certainly beyond my mind’s ability to know. It is experienced and known in awareness, and its profound beauty has me feel I will simply evaporate out of my body and mind. It is exquisitely intimate and yet completely impersonal. And there is peace in Monkey Mind Land again.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-universe-infinite-to-finite-to-infinite/feed/0On suffering and forgivenesshttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/on-suffering-and-forgiveness/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/on-suffering-and-forgiveness/#respondMon, 03 Mar 2014 18:41:31 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1340Today I read a quote by one of my favorite non-dualistic teachers, Rupert Spira: “Have the courage and the clarity to see that God neither cares nor even knows about suffering. Suffering is resistance, and God – eternal, infinite Awareness – like empty space, knows no resistance, and therefore cannot know suffering.” It really made me stop for a […]

]]>Today I read a quote by one of my favorite non-dualistic teachers, Rupert Spira: “Have the courage and the clarity to see that God neither cares nor even knows about suffering. Suffering is resistance, and God – eternal, infinite Awareness – like empty space, knows no resistance, and therefore cannot know suffering.” It really made me stop for a moment to contemplate suffering, and it immediately took me back to the moment in time that I saw that God does not know forgiveness.

Before you jump to the conclusion that I think God/Universal Energy/The Is-ness is something of harshness and cruelty, let me share my experience around forgiveness.

It occurred in a dream. I had acted out horrible cruelty on another, and in seeing what I had done, was now face to face with this creature, begging and imploring its forgiveness. I was sobbing and repeating my apologies, on my knees. This creature morphed out of physical form and into pure energy, emitting colors that were indescribably exquisite and nothing like I’d seen before. And each I time I begged its forgiveness, it pulsated its energy towards me, and I could see and feel it enveloping me. I experienced this energy as slightly warmer than my body temperature, and it penetrated every cell of my body. The only response to each pleading was a pulsation of this energy. And as the pulsating continued, I began to realize that the energy was unconditional love, and that no matter how much I pleaded its forgiveness, it could not provide it. Unconditional love does not know forgiveness, it is simply love. It could ONLY love me. Unconditional love.

We provide ourselves with our own experiences in life, determined by our interpretations of events, our thoughts and our beliefs, all of which are created by our thoughts. Just as suffering is a resistance we can release, so too is forgiveness something we provide ourselves.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/on-suffering-and-forgiveness/feed/0Meditations on Deathhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meditations-on-death/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meditations-on-death/#commentsFri, 07 Feb 2014 06:43:46 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1319At my sickest, when I was sure that death was imminent, I stopped resisting everything about the experience and surrendered. In that moment I became fully present to the ‘now’, and I experienced the essence of Self. And in that moment, I felt completely fulfilled and I made peace with death, having no regrets for […]

]]>At my sickest, when I was sure that death was imminent, I stopped resisting everything about the experience and surrendered. In that moment I became fully present to the ‘now’, and I experienced the essence of Self. And in that moment, I felt completely fulfilled and I made peace with death, having no regrets for my failures and no need for acknowledgment of my successes, for there was no distinction between the two.

And so tonight, lying in bed unable to fall asleep, listening in a meditative state to contemplations on passages of transition, my mind slowed down and the incessant thoughts ceased. Sitting up into a spontaneous meditation, I felt myself realign, and then all that was, was awareness, that experience of love for all my physical manifestations of it, and the sometimes excruciating expansions of it.

It is like being on the threshold of death, when there is that clear retrospection that has the struggles of life fall into perspective and reveal their purposes, and that moment when finally, everything falls into the truth that love is, and all around there is simply an expression of it or a cry for it.

I have more and more, embraced meditating on death, not as an ending, but as a transition out of a time/space reality and into that which is. It is not a sad or morbid meditation. It feels more like a remembrance. It helps me connect more deeply to my essence and it opens my heart. And often, there is an overflowing of love that releases in tears…and frequently in an urge to write, and yet words are inadequate.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meditations-on-death/feed/4Frozen in illness?http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/frozen-in-illness/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/frozen-in-illness/#commentsFri, 10 Jan 2014 21:12:52 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1312Even though my children are grown up, I have remained a fan of animated movies. I recently went to see Frozen, and as is often the case, I thoroughly enjoyed the humor and then found myself contemplating the underlying message. Spoiler alert: this is the story in a nutshell. A girl’s heart is frozen and […]

]]>Even though my children are grown up, I have remained a fan of animated movies. I recently went to see Frozen, and as is often the case, I thoroughly enjoyed the humor and then found myself contemplating the underlying message.

Spoiler alert: this is the story in a nutshell. A girl’s heart is frozen and she is dying. The only thing that will save her is an act of pure love. As the story unfolds we anticipate what this act will be. Will she be saved by the man of her dreams? Will her sister’s love save her? Will one of her creature friends do something extraordinary? It is none of the aforementioned. It is her own act of selfless love that saves her.

This brings me back to the Lyme community, the many tens of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) who feel frozen in their illness, just as I was, waiting and hoping that the perfect healthcare provider or healer or protocol or new product will thaw out the relentless symptoms that have us feeling as though we are forever stuck in disease and suffering.

Our healing does not come from sources outside of ourselves, it comes from within. It is up to us. This is good news! It is our shift of attention back into the greatest source of love and power there is, our Selves, that alters our path into one of well being. It does not preclude asking for help, it does not preclude taking care of our bodies under the guidance of those who are experts in their various fields of health and wellness, for in all of that we have the opportunity to learn what there is to learn and let go of that which no longer serves us. It’s the opportunity to shift the context in which we create and live our lives, and this is such a gift to give ourselves. The journey may be long or short, easy or difficult and everything in between.

The great act of love in the movie was one our main character provided herself. We can learn from this. I invite us all to be our own hero.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/frozen-in-illness/feed/4Teens and Lyme Diseasehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/teens-and-lyme-disease/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/teens-and-lyme-disease/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 17:11:31 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1300At a glance it would seem so unfortunate that a teenager would be dealt the hand of Lyme disease on top of dealing with the social challenges of being a teen. How unfair, that at a time when going out with friends, experimenting with life and social ‘rules’ would be the norm, a young person […]

]]>At a glance it would seem so unfortunate that a teenager would be dealt the hand of Lyme disease on top of dealing with the social challenges of being a teen. How unfair, that at a time when going out with friends, experimenting with life and social ‘rules’ would be the norm, a young person would now have to feel confined to dealing with illness while their peers are out living it up.

Life is not fair, it’s just life. We live with expectations of ‘normal’ and then are disappointed when we are reminded, sometimes painfully, that expectations set us up for many disappointments. It’s a good time for all of us to remember that expectations aren’t wrong, but our attachment to expectations often become our downfall. It is also worth remembering that the lessons learned in social interactions are nothing more than self-awareness, facilitated by the interactions. We can use any circumstance to enhance our self-awareness, it does not have to look the way we think it should.

I have not raised a teen with a chronic illness. I had two healthy teenage daughters who lived through ‘normal’ teen years with other chronic teen stuff, but there were some things I learned from them through the process. It became one of my favorite periods of motherhood, but first I had to let go of believing that I knew how to raise a teen, because truly, I didn’t. We lived and learned together.

Young people have fresh minds, they have extraordinary courage to experiment and break rules, they often ruthlessly and in the face of fear are willing to be true to themselves and their inquisitiveness, they are smart and intuitive, they have great resilience, and they are capable of deep understanding and heartfelt growth and self-awareness. And just like all human beings, they want to be heard and acknowledged for who they are, just as they are.

As a parent we can set the tone for the journey. Our experience of life is created with the power of the mind. We have the choice to frame our challenges with self-empowerment or as victimhood. There are many other choices too, none are wrong and none are right. If you are looking to support your young person into empowerment, then look first at your own view on the situation.

The opportunity to learn from Lyme is as great for the parent as for the teen. If you are willing to take away your views and opinions of how things should be, you create a space for them to do the same. Talk to your child and ask questions. Really listen to their thoughts on how they are experiencing the challenge of illness, and don’t try to change their minds. Acknowledge them right where they are. Notice for yourself if you are also having similar thoughts. For instance, do you both think it is unfair? Explore it a little: Is it more unfair to be young and ill or older and ill? Truly, there is never a convenient or good time to be chronically ill. Being ill at any stage of life brings it’s unique set of challenges, otherwise known as opportunities.

I would encourage you to receive them as whole and complete, just as they are. Let go of thinking that they are too young or too immature to have the ability to begin being self-empowered in the face of their circumstances. Journey along side them into self-awareness. Notice your thoughts about their circumstances, and encourage them to notice their own thoughts as well. Realize that thoughts about the circumstances are just thoughts and not the truth. This is not to say that the thoughts are invalid, but thoughts are just made up in our minds. If, for instance, you keep thinking the thought that the illness is unfair, then you and your child will experience life through this dis-empowering context, and your energy will be drained into resisting the unfairness of life. Rather than focusing on the unfairness, allow yourselves to experience what is underneath the thoughts of unfairness. Perhaps it is sadness or loneliness or despair or exhaustion. In allowing yourselves to be with the actual feeling, without adding the narrative of your thoughts (story), the experience moves through you and you are left free and clear in the present. It’s like having a good cry over something and feeling relieved afterwards.

As a parent you have the opportunity to discover so much from your thoughts about the circumstances and to liberate yourself from the judgments or opinions you have about your child’s situation. When you share your growth with your child and your view of them as extraordinary and strong, it will provide an opportunity and a clearing for them to liberate themselves too. We lead best by example. It is not possible to make anyone else become self-aware, but in our moments of full self-awareness, we can bring that energy to others and inspire them.

Like it or not, the greater the challenge being faced, the greater the opportunity for growth. To realize the gifts of the challenge does not mean you and your child have to go through this experience being inauthentically positive. It is a roller coaster ride. There are good days and there are tough days. Allowing yourselves to go through the experiences authentically, while being responsible for noticing your thoughts and narrative about the experiences, becomes an enlightening process. Holding yourselves responsible for noticing your thoughts is the first step. It becomes easier over time to allow the full human experience. It is not meant to be any particular way, it is simply the way it is.

One last thing I would encourage you to look at is the view you each have about your child. No human being is a single story. In other words, the illness is one of uncountable facets of who they are. While it is necessary to put attention on dealing with supporting their body in a healing process, it is also necessary to nourish the whole person, taking time to focus on the many other aspects of who they are. This will help rebalance the focus and provide some much needed relief from the topic of sickness.

Fasten your seat belts, throw your arms in the air, and embrace the roller coaster ride. It’s perfectly fine to scream on the downs and laugh on the ups… and allow for the bonding, no matter how difficult it may seem.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/teens-and-lyme-disease/feed/2CDC announces 300K new cases of Lyme per year – now what?http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/cdc-announces-300k-new-cases-of-lyme-per-year-now-what/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/cdc-announces-300k-new-cases-of-lyme-per-year-now-what/#commentsMon, 26 Aug 2013 18:06:38 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=1293There has been a great deal of excitement in the Lyme community since last week when the CDC finally released a statement declaring that there are at least 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year. For years we have been preaching this from every soap box we could find to stand on. And finally, […]

]]>There has been a great deal of excitement in the Lyme community since last week when the CDC finally released a statement declaring that there are at least 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year. For years we have been preaching this from every soap box we could find to stand on. And finally, the announcement, and news stations are picking up on the story. It should be noted that this does not include all cases and definitely does not include how many people are dealing with the co-infections of other tick-borne illnesses that a frequently contracted along with Lyme disease, making the treatment of Lyme that much more complex. It also does not include the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands who have chronic Lyme disease. But 300,000 is our starting point.

To my surprise, along with a sigh of relief, I experienced a lot of anger when the announcement was made. My back was up and I wanted to shake someone from the CDC and scream, “What took you so long…you have known this for over a decade!!! How dare you withhold such important information!”

Following that was all the speculation around the timing of the press release. Is it because Baxter is well underway in trials of it’s Lyme vaccine that they hope to release soon??….down the rabbit hole I went.

And then I got off my high horse, stopped looking back into the past and speculating about the future, and returned to the present. This announcement is important and I am beyond grateful that it has finally been made. It is a first step. Awareness for the public. We are no longer a large community of people ranting about numbers we look like we are making up for attention, we suddenly have recognition and our statements have been validated.

So now what? Well, things are mostly the same. There are a lot (LOT) of very ill people, the majority of the medical community still has no training or experience in dealing with Lyme and it’s co-infections, there are still no widely accepted and accurate testing methods, there are still no clear cut and reliable treatment plans, insurance companies still don’t cover long term treatment plans for chronic Lyme… These things will change over time. The question remains, how long? My guess is that it will be quite a while. And I am not living under the illusion that there will suddenly be a treatment that is going to work across the board for all cases of Lyme disease. I know of too many people who have been treated with long-term antibiotics and are still sick, or who feel better but if they don’t remain on a maintenance treatment plan have a recurrence of their symptoms. I don’t consider this a cure. And I am not diminishing the celebration of people regaining the ability to function well again, but there is something not to be missed here, the opportunity to be self-responsible and empowered right now.

This is not the time to sit back and wait for someone else to hurry up and ‘fix’ us. This is the time for all of us to combine our experience, our wisdom and our love to find ways to support ourselves and one another, not just within the community of patients, but along side the medical experts, the alternative health practitioners, the energy healers and our friends and family members. This incredibly challenging health concern is a reflection back to all of us about how we live, how we approach our wellness and well being. We are the creators of our lives and our experiences. We should not underestimate the power that we are in the matter of our lives.

Our environment is filled with tens of thousands of toxins, we eat genetically modified foods, we live stressful lives, we over do and under ‘be’. We have lost so much of our connection to natural living and barrel around in our over-stimulated lives, fueling ourselves with processed foods to support our fast paced lives.

What if we just pause and take stock of how life has become? What if we start doing some simple things that are self-caring, self-responsible, self-nurturing? What if we support our over-taxed bodies by gently detoxing them regularly, eating more of the clean, single-ingredient foods, exercise appropriately, spend time in the quiet and appreciate who we are without all the labels of outside achievement? What if we took a kinder and gentler approach to ourselves and life and had compassion for how we have lived and simply forgive ourselves for getting caught up in the madness? What if we nourish ourselves as human beings rather than as human ‘doings’?

We can turn a lot around by ourselves. We can turn even more around if we work in co-operation with each other. The grandest of opportunities lies in our challenges…let’s meet this challenge side by side.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/cdc-announces-300k-new-cases-of-lyme-per-year-now-what/feed/4Never-ending Bluehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/never-ending-blue/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/never-ending-blue/#respondWed, 24 Apr 2013 03:46:30 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=920Who am I? The ultimate question. I remember being 7 years old and contemplating that very question. I went through my entire body looking for that answer. Am I my hands because I can feel things through touch? Am I my eyes because I can see? Am I my ears because I can hear? I […]

Who am I? The ultimate question. I remember being 7 years old and contemplating that very question. I went through my entire body looking for that answer. Am I my hands because I can feel things through touch? Am I my eyes because I can see? Am I my ears because I can hear? I kept coming up with a ‘no’. I never had the answer to the questions I asked, but I did know who I wasn’t.

And so, many years later, in the midst of illness and cognitive dysfunction, I stopped everything. I stopped trying to figure out my illness and the answers to life, and I stopped resisting being ill. It was the moment I became still and present to what is. And there are no words that can describe what ‘it’ is or exactly how ‘it’ felt. Words come from our minds, and our minds simply cannot comprehend or imagine who we are. That would be like trying to picture infinity. It’s just not possible.

What I can share is this; it is simple, so simple your mind won’t want to believe it. The truth of who we are is that we are pure consciousness. It is our essence. It is formless and therefore nothing and everything. And the experience of it is a love so profound it has no beginning and no ending. It is manifest through us as a way of being and it alters our entire perception of life itself. And truly, our access to being present to who we are is to simply stop trying to figure it out and to stop doing what we think we should do to experience it. It requires no knowledge or thought. Quite the contrary. We realize our essence in stillness. We already are who we are.

The best analogy I can come up with is that who we are is like the never-ending blue of the sky. It is the context in which our life is simply the content. And the content that is our life is like the clouds that drift across that sky. No matter how many clouds form, the never-ending blue is forever there, unchanged and unaltered by their presence.

And so it is in life. Our minds are forever generating thoughts, followed by thoughts about our thoughts, adding meaning to our life and our experiences. This is our human nature. It is neither right nor wrong, it is simply how it is. Upon awakening to ‘the blue’, the perception we have of life and its experiences is forever altered. Being awake does not translate into a state of bliss, although initially it can certainly occur like a honeymoon. But honeymoons have a beginning, middle and end, after which there is a maturing and deepening of the knowing.

The joy of wakefulness is profound, but the joy is not what happiness is. To recognize and see in others our own Self is often staggering. To see humanity in a collective state of survival, as a projection of thoughts that create a holographic universe, is all at once awesome and heartbreaking. Living awake is divinely peaceful and at the same time brings the entire spectrum of human emotion front and center, to be fully experienced. It is a fulfillment that dissolves need, and yet doesn’t rest by itself. Its expansion is inevitable. And with each part of the whole that awakens, there is the illusion of healing to that which can never be broken, and the human has the full experience of this illusion.

And so on this night after a thousand tears have been wept with neither sadness or joy, I wrap my self around our collective humanity with love… We are what It is, the never-ending blue of the sky.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/never-ending-blue/feed/0A Daughter’s Experience of her Mom’s Lyme Diseasehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-daughters-experience-of-her-moms-lyme-disease/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-daughters-experience-of-her-moms-lyme-disease/#commentsWed, 03 Apr 2013 17:16:55 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=809My Experience with Lyme disease from the outside: by Samantha Rushovich Having a chronic illness is something I cannot relate to. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up everyday feeling sick, hopeless, and afraid. I don’t know the frustration that comes along with not being able to do what you want to and […]

]]>My Experience with Lyme disease from the outside: by Samantha Rushovich

Having a chronic illness is something I cannot relate to. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up everyday feeling sick, hopeless, and afraid. I don’t know the frustration that comes along with not being able to do what you want to and need to do everyday. However, I know what it’s like to love someone with a chronic illness. My mom became very sick with Lyme disease when I was in high school. This was difficult for so many reasons, but especially since Lyme disease is so misunderstood. This is not the story of my mom’s experience, but of my experience living with and loving someone who is chronically ill.

To begin, I should explain my relationship with my mom. I was attached to her hip until I was a little too old. The comfort I feel around my mom is inexplicable and extraordinary. Just being in her presence makes me feel warm and safe to this day (I am now 19). My connection to my mom goes beyond a normal mother-daughter relationship though. I’ll express this with a story: Once when I was in the 8th grade I was sitting in music class. It was about 9 o’clock in the morning and I felt a random very painful throbbing in my ankle. It was out of nowhere and it persisted for about five minutes. I shrugged it off and went on with my day. Later when I got home from school my mom asked me from behind the kitchen island, “Guess what I did today?” I said, “What?” BANG! She plops a big injury boot up on the counter. She tore two ligaments in her ankle that morning around the same time my ankle was hurting in class. I don’t know what everyone else believes, but personally, I believe that love can be so strong you feel people’s pain for them. This was the most fascinating example of this intense love that I could think of from my life. Emotional pain is much easier to feel for someone, but physical pain takes it to a whole new level. So, now you understand just how connected I am to my mom.

When my mom started getting sick I felt bad and did what I could to help out, but figured she’d feel better soon enough. Like I said, Lyme disease is very misunderstood so there was no time line or list of symptoms and treatments that we could rely on. It was almost nice to get to take care of her for once after the millions of times she cared for me when I was sick. She never got sick when I was a kid, so this was new. However, she wasn’t getting better and I was only sixteen—therefore I was selfish, pissy, and impatient much of the time. I didn’t want to take care of her anymore; I wanted her to take care of me again. My dad was traveling a lot for work and had to commute to Ohio. My sister was now in college, so a lot of the time it was just my mom and me. I loved the time I got to spend with her, but now she was sleeping, crying, and very out of it most of the time.

I began to get overwhelmed because I couldn’t fix her. When my mom feels any kind of pain it bothers me immensely. When I took her to the foot doctor a few weeks ago, just seeing the doctor press on the spot that was sore for her made my insides go limp. I absolutely CANNOT stand the idea or sight of my mom in any sort of pain or discomfort. Her illness was not just physical though, she was completely depressed. I was so distraught, but I didn’t identify it. Only now looking back can I see that I was terrified, devastated, and dealing with serious disenchantment. I was going through my own difficult time completely unrelated to what my mom was going through, but of course it didn’t help that we both were depressed and needed each other greatly.

Each time I spoke with my mom during that year, she cried. My heart broke every time we spoke and so I turned to avoidance to protect myself from the pain I would try to feel for her. Again, I didn’t realize this at the time—I was an obnoxious, but understanding 16-year-old girl. However, I can see it all so clearly now. The disenchantment that I mentioned was with realizing that my mom was a human being. I always saw her as a superhero (which she absolutely is), but even superheroes are human. As I grew up my mom climbed a mountain multiple times, kayaked, rafted, did kickboxing, was called “The Beast” at her gym, and was always on the go and moving forward. To see her pause and just stop it all and lay on a couch for what seemed like eternity was despairing for me. I got angry and wanted to force her to be better. I just couldn’t understand it. It hurt me and I felt alone and abandoned. Then, I felt intense guilt. How could I be making this about me? Now, this guilt only came in once I was out of my own depression and had the capacity to identify my own feelings and thoughts on the matter. This was a big breakthrough for me. I finally made a mature, unselfish decision: I had to have strength for my mom. I had to stop being angry, sad, and selfish and shift to being supportive, motivating, and strong. I stopped running away when she needed to cry and rather listened and gave her a shoulder to cry on. She was a human, just like me, and she needed someone to hold her up as she got through something so painful that I had to accept I just didn’t understand.

The most difficult realization I had after I decided to support her was that she didn’t want to get better. Rather than getting angry, I just decided to let it be and try to encourage her subtly without being pushy (whether she noticed or not). I had to keep myself optimistic for her. The day my mom said to me, “I’ve figured it out! I have to stop being afraid to get better” was a day where I felt 100 pounds lighter. I had known that all along, but she had to realize it for herself. That’s not a thought you can put in someone’s head and expect them to agree or even comprehend. My mom’s transformation was beautiful and inspiring. Through all that, she is officially the strongest, most evolved and enlightened person I know. I feel so lucky that I get to be her daughter and learn from her because I believe she has lessons to teach that everyone needs to learn.

So, aside from my personal experience there are a few points I want to make very clear here. When dealing with a loved one who is chronically ill:

Accept that you don’t understand what they are going through

Trust how they feel

Try not to get angry at them

Motivate, support, and make yourself available

Don’t push your ideas on them

Give them their space, but always keep your eye on them

Don’t forget who they are (the emotional aspect of illness can have intense consequences and make them seem frighteningly different)

Stay strong for them; even when you want to break down—it is not your turn, you have a duty to help them.

Love them

The whole experience was one of the hardest times of my life. However, my relationship with my mom is stronger than ever. She is my mother and my best friend. I go to her with everything I need to and she does the same with me. Our relationship is now a two-way street, which is more fulfilling than the more childish one I had as a teenager. I love being my mom’s friend and I love when she comes to me with happiness, sadness, confusion, and enlightenment. I will always take care of my mom and she will always take care of me. It’s an absolutely perfect way to be and the experience was hard, but nonetheless perfect.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/a-daughters-experience-of-her-moms-lyme-disease/feed/8Finding my Self in a barnhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/finding-my-self-in-a-barn/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/finding-my-self-in-a-barn/#commentsWed, 27 Feb 2013 17:09:05 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=539I’ve learned from this beautiful, 120 year old barn. Filled with the accumulated dirt and debris over it’s long and mysterious life, it holds the scents of over a century of history and earthiness. It has been used in ways I have no knowledge of, and it has tired of holding onto it’s old shingles […]

]]>I’ve learned from this beautiful, 120 year old barn. Filled with the accumulated dirt and debris over it’s long and mysterious life, it holds the scents of over a century of history and earthiness. It has been used in ways I have no knowledge of, and it has tired of holding onto it’s old shingles which it easily gives up during a windy day, offering donations to the wood stove. Gaps in the siding allow light to penetrate from outside, quietly lighting up the gnarled wooden floor. Standing as itself, without judgment, it exudes the strength of its beingness. And I have such a love for this place.

Pushing aside my yoga video, I opted to answer the call to spend time in that chilly building again, something that happens quite frequently. I looked around it and was aware that just as it is, it is perfect. If it never changed, I would enjoy it just as dearly. I was also present to the possibilities within it…a game room with a large picture window over looking the back yard and bordering woods, or perhaps an over sized office, or perhaps a couple of bedrooms with a living room, leaving the downstairs part of the barn as is. Endless possibilities!

I reflected on myself, present to a resistance, to not surrendering. The topic of resistance and surrender have been active in the teleconference calls. While these calls are for people currently dealing with chronic illness, there is no difference between them and me and I find myself growing and learning in their presence.

I have experienced surrender, the sweetest of moments when everything stops, when without resistance the very nature of who I am is allowed to be expressed. It is a bliss. And yet there is always the return to struggle.

And so as I stood in the barn, in quietness, I became aware to that I had surrendered to a spiritual life to escape the suffering of ego, and been graced with a glimpse into the wonder of who we are, that nothing is wrong with us, that the magnitude of the simplicity of life is something we struggle against, and that a state of grace is always within reach. And yet, I have found myself, as of late, falling repeatedly from a state of grace into a battle with an unseen opponent.

“What we resists persists” goes the saying. As the cloud of resistance lifted, I experienced myself surrendering to that which I have resisted. I have resisted my ego, resulting in it being fully active in my resistance to it. As I set aside my battle tools (aka ego conversations) and surrendered, embracing ALL that I am, I saw myself reflected in every nook and cranny of the barn.

The powerful and loving expanse of who I am is inclusive of every feeling and emotion of a human being. The spectrum is broad, from love to fear and everything in between. I have been loving myself when I have ‘feel good’ experiences and rejecting myself in avoiding the ego provoked ones, which in essence is to love myself only conditionally. It’s like declaring I am not good enough or acceptable if I feel things like anger or frustration, that somehow this means I have failed.

I (we) cannot fail at being human. It is simply who we are.

And so today, in a flood of laughter invoked tears, I took my second step into surrender. I invite you to join me…it’s messy and beautiful beyond words.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/finding-my-self-in-a-barn/feed/1Dog Therapyhttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/dog-therapy/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/dog-therapy/#respondSun, 20 Jan 2013 14:59:53 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=375My eyes opened to see two sets of brown eyes peering expectantly at me. This is a daily routine. The dogs wait with great anticipation for their morning walk on the trails. I hear my mind kick into high gear, as usual, reviewing the list of things I’d like to get done today, and today’s […]

]]>My eyes opened to see two sets of brown eyes peering expectantly at me. This is a daily routine. The dogs wait with great anticipation for their morning walk on the trails. I hear my mind kick into high gear, as usual, reviewing the list of things I’d like to get done today, and today’s list is pretty long.

And as is routine (98% of the time), I get up and get dressed, scrutinized by the dogs. They know exactly what clothes I wear when we head for the trails. A pair of jeans means no walk, ratty sweats and thick socks mean TRAIL WALK - WOO HOO!

And so off for my morning dose of dog therapy I went. They led by example, enjoying every new scent, expressing joy for the outing (even though it’s daily routine) as though it was an unexpected gift. And my therapy session began.
I noticed the quiet of the air, the whiteness of the snow, the crunching sound of my boots as I broke through areas where the snow has softened and then hardened with the fluctuating temperatures of day and night. I looked for evidence of what they had their noses glued to, seeing only tracks where they smelt a past presence. The cold air rushed in as I unzipped my jacket to cool off my rapidly heating body and the freshness was delicious. I became present to the stillness within me, uncluttered by thoughts.

But I lost it for a moment, and a million thoughts about my day to day life flooded in. What would I accomplish today? What do I need from the grocery store? Will I get two new work projects this week? How is my friend feeling? Should I move furniture around again? When should I schedule the next conference call? How did that last meeting really go? And on, and on, and on…

A sudden tangle of leashes jerked me back into the present moment. And I noticed that I had left the dog therapy session, giving it up for thoughts that were mostly about things past and future, about things that didn’t even existed in the moment. Those few minutes of losing presence had felt so busy.

And so we resumed the session, navigating over fallen trees and rock piles, breathing heavily from our exertion, enjoying the quiet of the woods in the morning and the company of each other.

Life is rich, no matter the length of the lists or the circumstances of my life. My daily dog therapy allows me to start each day present to this. I’m practicing bringing the quiet of those sessions into my daily life. I have not yet mastered it, but I understand that it takes practice to reach mastery. So grateful for my teachers, Ben and Thandi.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/dog-therapy/feed/0What does the Lyme community share with The City of Joy?http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/what-does-the-lyme-community-share-with-the-city-of-joy/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/what-does-the-lyme-community-share-with-the-city-of-joy/#respondWed, 05 Dec 2012 05:09:01 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=353Tonight I attended an event at ABC Home & Carpet in the Deepak Homebase studio. Eve Ensler (of the Vagina Monologues) led this discussion about supporting Congolese women recover and heal from the war atrocities of gang rapes and mutilation. But it was so much more than that…the discussion covered the political and social issues […]

]]>Tonight I attended an event at ABC Home & Carpet in the Deepak Homebase studio. Eve Ensler (of the Vagina Monologues) led this discussion about supporting Congolese women recover and heal from the war atrocities of gang rapes and mutilation. But it was so much more than that…the discussion covered the political and social issues in the Congo, the horrific violence against females (ALL ages), and her vision of a long-term solution to stabilizing the Congo…empowering the women in the City of Joy.

The City of Joy was built by the Congolese, and for the first time ever in the Congo, there were women ‘construction workers’. In this refuge girls and women of all ages are medically cared for and then begin to thrive “through healing therapy, learning their rights, literacy training, self defense, civics, computer skills, agricultural training and public speaking. In less than six months, graduates have returned to their villages and created farming cooperatives, opened orphanages and homes for the aged and infirm, demanded their rights, given speeches, built community and taught what they have learned.”

What does this have to do with Lyme disease? Nothing and everything.

Nothing in that they are not dealing with Lyme disease, everything in that they are human beings who’s bodies were damaged (some unimaginably), who’s spirits were broken and their lives destroyed.

These women are rising up. They have reignited their inner light, they are healing at a soul level and they are powerful. There is no human being more powerful than the one who has hit rock bottom, and then rebuilt their life on that rock solid foundation.

I was so moved by the stories that were shared, and I was so inspired to hear that when these women were asked what they wanted from other people, they said they just wanted to be empowered. This is the human spirit in revival - a slow and steady healing. No matter how we hit our lows, the opportunities are the same. Turning inward to the power that we are, standing for our rights but without using past methods of dominance or fear, holding on for what serves the greater good…now that is some stuff to make us dance with joy.

The Congolese women in The City of Joy are going beyond physically mending, they are healing. And that causes a shift in consciousness, and it has no boundaries when it comes to the ripple effect.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/what-does-the-lyme-community-share-with-the-city-of-joy/feed/0So much to say about so littlehttp://www.lymethriving.com/blog/so-much-to-say-about-so-little-3/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/so-much-to-say-about-so-little-3/#respondWed, 28 Nov 2012 04:17:15 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=347After years of reading many books by wonderful teachers and authors (Chopra, Tolle, Dyer, Gangaji, Hawkins, Katie, Rumi…to name a few), participating in personal development programs, meditating, chanting, personal introspection, listening to talks and seminars, trying all sorts of different healing modalities, I have come to realize something….so much is said about so little. What […]

After years of reading many books by wonderful teachers and authors (Chopra, Tolle, Dyer, Gangaji, Hawkins, Katie, Rumi…to name a few), participating in personal development programs, meditating, chanting, personal introspection, listening to talks and seminars, trying all sorts of different healing modalities, I have come to realize something….so much is said about so little.

What is it we seek so desperately and with such demand that it is met by a continuous and growing body of information in such a wide variety of forms? What comes to mind is inner-peace, love, well-being….personal fulfillment, a state of bliss.

And yet it’s not what we learn that grants us inner peace, it’s all the things we let go of that allow us the experience of a peace that is ever present and never changing.

When I contemplate my favorite teachers, I realize that why they are my favorites is because they simply remind me that all the answers to my questions are within me, that nothing or nobody outside myself can grant me a depth of a love greater than the love I already am. That the access to love is forgiveness. That who we truly are needs nothing.

We search tirelessly. We don’t have to. It’s all here, right now, within us. So simple.

So this is an invitation, with my love, to stop…and enjoy the wonder of who you are.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/so-much-to-say-about-so-little-3/feed/0That perfect moment.http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/that-perfect-moment/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/that-perfect-moment/#commentsWed, 10 Oct 2012 14:54:21 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=328After a couple of pretty hectic weeks, last night I hit my stride again, the stride that actually works for me…gentleness. I climbed gratefully into bed, early. What to read? What to listen to? I took my iPad and downloaded a 30 minute audio book by Gangaji, something that would resonate with alignment, her voice […]

]]>After a couple of pretty hectic weeks, last night I hit my stride again, the stride that actually works for me…gentleness.

I climbed gratefully into bed, early. What to read? What to listen to? I took my iPad and downloaded a 30 minute audio book by Gangaji, something that would resonate with alignment, her voice a gentle and hypnotic vibration of calm. I turned my light off, put my iPad on the bed next to me, tapped ‘Play’, lay my head on the pillow and began to listen.

The soft glow off the screen illuminated my surroundings. What I could see looked like a cloud of pillows and comforter. I could hear my dogs breathing as they lay on the floor next to my bed, and Gangaji’s voice spoke quietly to me as I let go. Every part of my body was comfortable and my mind went quiet. It was a perfect moment of comfort and peace. And I feel asleep well before the audio ended, present and deeply grateful for the bliss I found myself experiencing.

After 9 hours of the most restful sleep I’ve had in weeks, I awoke to the sound of rain and my dogs as they jumped onto the bed to wake me for their morning walk. And in continued bliss, we walked the trails in the rain, the wetness enhancing the colors of the fall and the contrast between those colors and the black coats of my two companions.

The book I was listening to last night (and then listened to in its entirety this morning) is called, “What do you really want?” Contemplating that perfect moment just before falling asleep last night I was reminded that life is just a moment. It is all…just this moment. What I really want is to live each moment in the presence of bliss, in the letting go, in the ‘not doing’…to keep recreating that perfect moment.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/that-perfect-moment/feed/2The ‘Doctors’http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-doctors/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-doctors/#commentsTue, 03 Jul 2012 17:41:44 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=164When it comes to tick-borne illnesses, there is an ongoing stream of complaints about doctors, not just medical doctors, but healthcare providers across the spectrum into ‘alternative’ healthcare providers (OD’s, ND’s, DC’s, etc). There are also many praises sung for others in the same fields of care. I do not propose that I have experienced […]

]]>When it comes to tick-borne illnesses, there is an ongoing stream of complaints about doctors, not just medical doctors, but healthcare providers across the spectrum into ‘alternative’ healthcare providers (OD’s, ND’s, DC’s, etc). There are also many praises sung for others in the same fields of care.

I do not propose that I have experienced it all and know it all, but this being my little soap box of a blog, I share here my thoughts on the ‘Doctors’.

I used to look to doctors for the answers, expecting them to have just the right information, to make no mistakes, and to be responsible for ‘fixing’ my body when it felt broken. This has changed over the last couple of years.

In earlier rounds of Lyme disease, I put the responsibility of my well being fully in the hands of my health care providers. Last year things shifted for me and I changed my stand. It felt more empowering to hold myself as the responsible party, to hold myself responsible for finding appropriate care, to hold myself responsible for getting educated about what was going on inside my body. From that place I experienced gratitude for what each of my healthcare providers offered in their field of expertise. After all this time I still do not feel like I am an expert in Lyme disease or other tick-borne illnesses and I’m far from considering myself a scientist with some great level of understanding for the brilliance and genius of the human body.

What I have learned though is to trust that my body is most likely the only thing that has the know-how to deal with the complicated process of healing itself, and my job is to do the best I can to support it in it’s job…and I rely on the knowledge and wisdom of those around me to support that. I have also learned to trust my gut instincts, although there are times I don’t honor them.

Life is short and it seems like a waste to spend time and energy lingering over the apparent inadequacies of some healthcare providers - those who brush Lyme patients off as being hypochondriacs, those who are too uncomfortable to stretch outside of their realms of expertise and listen to what their patients are saying to them, those who are simply overwhelmed because they feel they simply cannot make a difference, and still others who don’t have the staying power for the marathon it is to support a chronic Lyme patient back to wellness. It seems undeniably unfair that so many thousands have suffered for years, sometimes even decades dealing with these types of circumstances. It appears to impact people in different ways. Some remain angry and victimized, some become spokesman and public educators, and some become politically activated and are rattling the cages of the powers that be.

My experiences don’t come close to what I have heard others sharing about. Mostly I have been well supported in my learning and healing, and yet, I have also had times when I felt dismissed and where my commitment was not matched by the commitment of a healthcare provider. And when I take an honest look at those difficult times, I see that they offered an opportunity for me to learn something about myself…and so I work to make peace with them and consider that perhaps when I let go of my attachment to how people are ‘supposed’ to show up in my life, those experiences reveal an opportunity for a different type of healing. And at the end of the day, healing is healing, and it’s not always a comfortable journey.

What I find myself left with is gratitude for those doctors who give their all and stay the distance (Lyme literate or not), and compassion for those who aren’t ‘ready’ to step outside of their comfort zone to admit their humanity and learn newly, for overwhelm is not a pleasant experience for anyone. For those doctors who occur as negligent…I trust that in time they will have to face themselves for they are creating a future for themselves that will reflect who they are being in the present. The Universe provides that balance perfectly.

In the meantime, I wish for all patients to find the perfect blend of healthcare providers to support them along the path back to healing and wellness.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/the-doctors/feed/9Symptoms…Where The Wild Things Are.http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/symptoms-where-the-wild-things-are/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/symptoms-where-the-wild-things-are/#commentsTue, 15 May 2012 07:40:17 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=156Maybe I just haven’t learned the lessons deeply enough, or perhaps it’s time to learn some new ones. I am fighting tooth and nail against all of it. “Let the wild rumpus start!” The past month has brought out a number of experiences that are uncomfortable in their familiarity (fatigue, brain fog, pain and stiffness). […]

]]>Maybe I just haven’t learned the lessons deeply enough, or perhaps it’s time to learn some new ones. I am fighting tooth and nail against all of it. “Let the wild rumpus start!”

The past month has brought out a number of experiences that are uncomfortable in their familiarity (fatigue, brain fog, pain and stiffness). The frequency of these reminders has my identity flexing all it’s muscles…looks something like “roaring its terrible roars and gnashing its terrible teeth and rolling its terrible eyes and showing its terrible claws,” leaving me feeling irritable and as though somehow I have failed.

From lessons I learned last year I am back in self-surveillance mode. What is there for me to be responsible for? How have I been being that is out of alignment with who I am at my core. What worked for me when I was experiencing radiant health and well being that I have let go of recently, leaving me dancing with the creatures that feel like symptoms of my ill health last year and the years before?

So far the biggest change is in my busyness. Last year was mostly couch time, hours and hours of quiet with no talking, no doing, no thinking. Everything that I did was to support my well-being. I landed in a space of radiant health. However, in the past couple of months I have allowed myself to be catapulted into a busyness that leaves little to no down time. I have been dancing ferociously against the clock and calendar, creating deadlines and projects. My body has simply been roaring for quiet time and and a schedule that includes rest and relaxation.

“And [I] sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of [my] very own room
where [I] found [my] supper waiting for [me]
and it is still hot.”

So in the rumpus of this contemplation I burn off the frantic energy of panic and fear and am reminded of the discoveries of last year when I experienced the richness of life in the gap between words and the pause between actions. It’s all as it ever was…perfect, whole and complete.

As much as I enjoy ferocious activity and wild dancing, nothing comes close to the beauty of stillness. Now to recreate life again, allowing busyness to occur inside a peaceful space.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/symptoms-where-the-wild-things-are/feed/4Protocols and their hidden lessons – Lesson 8http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/protocols-and-their-hidden-lessons-lesson-8/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/protocols-and-their-hidden-lessons-lesson-8/#commentsTue, 13 Mar 2012 02:25:33 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=122Due to frequent requests about the protocols I followed to get well from Lyme disease, I am sharing them here. It should be noted that the supplements I took were prescribed by my Naturopath based on test results, so they are specific to my body chemistry. When I struggled from suicidal depression, it was also […]

]]>Due to frequent requests about the protocols I followed to get well from Lyme disease, I am sharing them here. It should be noted that the supplements I took were prescribed by my Naturopath based on test results, so they are specific to my body chemistry. When I struggled from suicidal depression, it was also dealt with naturally with amino acids (determined by more tests) in conjunction with some soul searching and healing. I do not suggest that my protocols are appropriate to others, and I hope this is helpful in some way. I would also like to say upfront that the protocols to support my body are only about one half of what I attribute to getting well. The other half (I believe) has to do with aligning myself energetically to wellness and healing.

Using these functional tests along with the traditional chem screen and ELISA testing helped to develop a complete picture of my nutrient, neurotransmitter, and hormonal deficiencies. Some of the tests also targeted digestive function which was a big part of correcting my immune system.

DIET:

Low gluten/sugar/dairy. For a while I juiced a lot of carrots/apples (Gerson’s Therapy), but what I ultimately went back to is what resonates with me; green smoothies (predominantly kale, spinach, dark green leafy veges + banana - because I like bananas), small amounts of organic chicken, fish or lamb. I love vegetables so eat loads of them, like broccoli, asparagus and brussel sprouts. Although Lymies are encouraged to NOT drink any alcohol, I chose to continue with my evening wine and chips. I don’t eat much rice, potato or bread as a general rule, but put me in a restaurant with fresh bread and butter and I’ll eat quite a bit while I wait for dinner.

(I learned that my body works hard and deserves to be nourished. I also learned that I do not have to do everything perfectly. There were times when simply wanted a meal from Boston Market and I enjoyed every mouthful.)

(I practiced, each time I swallowed a pill, to have each one be an act of kindness towards myself. I became aware that I had not been kind to myself over my life and this new way of being felt very loving.)

HERBALS:

Noni
Samento
Pinella
Parsley
Burbur
Houttuynia
(all by NutraMedix)

(I learned to commit to a long protocol, even when I did not want to…and it developed my ‘commitment muscle’.)

SELF-PRESCRIBED:

For a couple of months I added the Salt/C+ Protocol and built up to 13,000 mg each of salt and vitamin C per day. (my Naturopath was not happy about the salt intake with this but he understood my need to take it on because it empowered me)

(I read the protocol thoroughly…it’s quite extensive. I learned a lot about diet, detoxing and a variety of other methods to deal with bacteria/fungus, rifing, coiling, hyperbaric treatments etc…and I got that there is more than one way to skin a cat - just have to find what resonates and works for me.)

(I learned that if you want a space to have something new in it, you have to first clear that space of what is already there. I applied that to wellness. If I wanted wellness to show up in my body, first I had to rid myself of as many toxins as possible. This also reduced the amount of work my body had to do to deal with my toxic load.)

(I believe in servicing my car regularly, and while this is an oversimplification, I believe that my skeletal structure , central nervous system and energy fields deserve ‘servicing’. Can’t expect my organs to function optimally if nerves to them are pinched.)

(Learned that stiffness and pain of arthritis and general inflammation is reduced by gentle exercise. And it just feels really good to get outside, away from day to day living to breathe fresh air and get a change of scenery and energy. I know there are a lot of other benefits too…oxygenating the blood, flushing my system, sweating…)

REST:

Spent as much time as possible lying down and resting. Sometimes it was the most I could do.

(I learned that my body deserved to rest after 40 something years of being hammered by sport and long hours of working and years of being sick. It was just time to recuperate…no excuses necessary. I learned that I do not need to be sick to rest.)

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT:

Although I did not always ask for support, it was always available for me from family, friends and healthcare providers. Not sure what I would have done without my online Facebook family where we share every little ache, emotional twitch, cognitive screw up, new ‘cure’, jokes, tears and more. Talking to people who have had similar experiences is very comforting. A special hat-tip to Lisa, Paul, Pam and Cathy for being online with me so many months around the clock.

(Love is present everywhere…we need only be open to experiencing it.)

SPIRITUAL:

I personally believe that every challenge is an opportunity, that to stand empowered in the face of life’s ups and downs there is something to be responsible for. Last year was the most enlightening year for me to date. I had the time to just be with myself and take a good look at my whole life. It was the things I learned about myself, that have opened up my life in a new way, and that leaves me so grateful for the year I was the sickest.

(So much learned it will take a book to write it out. In a nutshell, my deepest lesson is that I matter, I am deserving and worthy of love, at my core I am whole and complete, I do not need anything and I have everything I could possibly wish for. Regardless of my circumstances, a fulfilling life is possible. We don’t ever lose our lives until we stop breathing…so although there was a time I thought I had ‘lost’ my life, I learned that this is my life, in this very moment, just as it is, and it’s up to me to make the most of it.)

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/protocols-and-their-hidden-lessons-lesson-8/feed/34Depression, my Access to Love – Lesson 7http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/depression-my-access-to-love-lesson-7/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/depression-my-access-to-love-lesson-7/#commentsSat, 18 Feb 2012 18:58:46 +0000http://lymethriving.wordpress.com/?p=114(Foreword: the majority of this was written mid 2011) “Roller coasters go up, roller coasters go down. Apparently I picked the mother of all roller coasters to ride. The past few weeks have been a series of whiplash ups and downs. Today I’m at the bottom, in the pit that feels never ending, but that […]

“Roller coasters go up, roller coasters go down. Apparently I picked the mother of all roller coasters to ride. The past few weeks have been a series of whiplash ups and downs. Today I’m at the bottom, in the pit that feels never ending, but that is reliably followed by an up…onto this certainty, I hang with fingernails.

I was standing in the kitchen earlier, crying…yup…must be Sunday. Another inventory-taking moment. Pain that is making me twitch, stiffness in my neck, fatigue. I don’t want to be here, I feel too tired to make a smoothie and don’t much care anyway. However, I took supplements and had a cup of tea. My friends all have their own things to deal with and I’m tired of complaining about my stuff to them.

So, this is the bottom, again…feeling helpless, alone, sorry for myself, unwell…depressed.”

I wrote that a couple of days ago, and stopped there. Don’t know what I hate more, the experience of being a victim, or stepping back and observing how I’m being when I am a victim. This is simply not who I am at my core, but I have to say, sometimes I allow this ass-kicking experience to get the best of me.

From January through mid-April I took on the well-being of my body at full tilt. I ramped up my protocols until I was taking or doing something to support my body, every 90 minutes, from 9 AM until 9 PM, day in and day out…supplements, enzymes, brain support, detoxing, chiropractic adjustments, massage, resting…mostly raw vegan diet. This was my full time job. And then, finally, I went off all supplements for a week to clean out in preparation for some tests. And I felt absolutely great!! Let go of all my fluid retention in 3 days (8 lbs of it), felt clear, felt well…and quite honestly, didn’t quite know what to do with myself. At the end of the week I was in a pit of depression, something I hadn’t anticipated in my wildest dreams.

While I had experienced short bouts of depression previously, this was different. Too many mornings of waking up and being sorry I had woken up. Too many mornings of starting the day in bed, crying, followed by standing in the kitchen crying, feeling empty and hollow. The self-imposed isolation of depression was taking over my life. To start the day at ground zero feels soul destroying. And then there is that surprising little something that has us take the next step in the day, that one thing we are prepared to do next, or must do next. For me it was taking the dogs for a walk. I’m grateful for their company and endless enthusiasm, for never being put off by my depression or lack of interest in life. They love me just as I am, no matter what, and they shadow me as I drag my gloomy self from one room to the next.

The day usually improves. I don’t know if it is because I manage to get a few things done or if it is because by the end of the day I can let myself stop doing things. Maybe it’s because soon I can escape into sleep…no longer left with my thoughts and questions of: what’s wrong with me? will this ever end? should I make it end? how will I make it end?

And so the weeks dragged by, each minute feeling longer than the last. It was the longest month of my life. I was waiting for some magical entity to walk through my front door and steep every cell in my body with a love and joy so deep it would be worth living another day. It didn’t happen.

I attended a Lyme seminar and had the pleasure of meeting two of my online friends in person, and I listened for some magic bullet to be revealed that would save me from myself. It felt good to talk to people involved with Lyme in a variety of ways, it felt good to hear a doctor talk about the effects of Lyme in a way that validated my experience. But what got my attention most was the talk by an author of a book called “Coping with Lyme”. As an expert on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Denise Lang walked us through causes and symptoms of PTSD. Surprisingly, many chronic Lymies share these symptoms.

I did not feel I had PTSD, but I could see for sure that I was not alone in dealing with the emotional backlash of feeling chronically sick, that it was normal, and that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Just distinguishing that helped me enormously.

I still began the next day lying in bed crying, I still walked the dogs. What was different on that day was that I began talking about feeling and being depressed, only to find that many of my fellow ‘chronic sickies’ were in the same boat.

And then I reached out to my Naturopath and learned that I had two components to deal with. One was the physiological cause of depression and the other was spiritual/emotional. He tested me, gave me a protocol of amino acids to follow and we talked.

It only took a couple of days for the depression to lift (yay for my aminos!!) and I undertook yet another journey within myself, probably the most valuable one to date, and I saw what was missing; love of Self. And life shifted…

It has been more than 6 months since I had to deal with the depression facet of my healing process. I no longer have a need to be loved by someone else, although I love being loved. I matter to me and it’s fine if I don’t matter to someone else. I see my shortcomings and can experience compassion for my humanity rather than self-loathing. Just as I am and just as I am not, I am perfect, whole and complete. I am.

My life still has ups and downs and I have the opportunity to experience it all from a place of love. And yes, sometimes I fail like the perfectly imperfect human being I am, and I will always have new things to discover about myself, …and no matter what it is I discover, it will be worthy of love.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/depression-my-access-to-love-lesson-7/feed/2Emptying the mind, replenishing the soul.http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/quieting-the-mind-replenishing-the-soul/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/quieting-the-mind-replenishing-the-soul/#commentsMon, 23 Jan 2012 03:14:29 +0000https://lymethriving.wordpress.com/?p=106A long awaited vacation after long, recurring bouts of dis-ease. I am not finished sharing the lessons that Lyme provided and continues to provide. At the moment, I’m enjoying my 3rd week of feeling remarkably well. There was a pop in my awareness that seemed to facilitate this wellness….but that’s a story for another day. […]

]]>A long awaited vacation after long, recurring bouts of dis-ease. I am not finished sharing the lessons that Lyme provided and continues to provide. At the moment, I’m enjoying my 3rd week of feeling remarkably well. There was a pop in my awareness that seemed to facilitate this wellness….but that’s a story for another day.

I returned to South Africa to visit friends and family, and to get out into my favorite space of all…the bushveld. There have been good rains and some recent flooding. The vegetation is lush and green, the air is very warm and humid.

Cindy and I are in a thatch roofed cottage in the bush-veld, no phone, Internet or tv….leaving me very thankful for my iPhone. Our days do not revolve around the time on a clock, but rather we follow our instincts….getting out for walks in the morning, sleeping during the afternoons, sitting at the river at sunset…game spotting.

We have not been disappointed; giraffe, zebra, warthogs, wildebeest, impala, waterbuck, buffalo, hippos, birds and an interesting variety of bugs.

And there is the ebb and flow of conversation between two girls who have enjoyed a friendship that spans 44 years. Perhaps we are now women? It just doesn’t feel that way.

We empty out our thoughts and experiences, we sleep when we are tired, eat when we are hungry (and sometimes when we aren’t) and make room for what there is to enjoy in the present; the sights and sounds of the bush-veld that replenish us at a soul level.

I smell like bug spray, my skin is sticky most of the day, the water that runs into the bath tub is brown, I have engaged in a midnight battle with a very large and ugly flying bug ….and the entire experience is sweet and nourishing.

It’s true what is said: “The bush-veld empties the mind and replenishes the soul.”

]]>Standing alone in the kitchen, taking inventory of my body…stiffness in my neck, ache in lower back, knees complaining, deep fatigue, brain fog…crying. Yup, it must be Sunday. Seems to be a new Sunday routine. Looking over at the counter covered in bottles of various enzymes, vitamins, minerals, herbal remedies etc, I sigh. Can’t face going through the daily routine of swallowing pills, doing detoxes, making vegetable smoothies, forcing my brain to do the dance of comprehending simple things that now occur as complicated problems, and at the same time fighting my way through the heaviness of fatigue.

So I discard the looming protocols and look at the large, homemade chocolate chip cookie in my hand. With a glance over at the ‘torture counter’ I decide… screw it…I’m eating the cookie, and I will eat junk and comfort food all day.

And so I ate the cookie, still crying.

Five minutes later I was counting out my pills, organizing myself to make smoothies, filtering water. I was glad I allowed myself a start to the day that was all drama. Sometimes it’s just how I feel, all dramatic and sorry for myself. I’m certainly tired of the slog through the Lyme. And Sunday was not a good day for sure. I went to Whole Foods to stock up on detox stuff and on my way out answered a survey at a table by the exit door. A woman was asking me questions. I couldn’t decipher what she was saying, my brain was jumbling everything up…but the funny thing is that I was answering her…and I have no idea what I said. I probably left her as dazed and confused as myself.

But bad mornings usually morph into reasonable days as I fill up on things good for me. This is new…doing things that are good for me, and at a slow pace…WTH! I’m almost 50 yrs old and have not spent much of those 50 years being good to my body. I tend to learn the hard way, but it’s okay, I do eventually learn. I sometimes worry that I have learned too late…

I have hated and loved taking on Lyme. In previous rounds of Lyme I thought I had taken on my illness with gusto. But there is a different ‘taking it on’ when you think you are dying. I am far from perfect, and sometimes I find myself face first in the dirt, not taking care of myself, but the scale is tipping. It is my full time job to manage my care. And for the first time in my life, I wish I had someone to hand it over to.

My life has become simpler in a way. There are the deep pleasures of doing simple things like laundry or taking the dogs for a slow walk. I drive below the speed limit…that is just hysterical, but it’s true and also necessary. I have gone from being the ultimate ‘doer’ to someone who sits in silence, just being. That’s often all I can do.

And in the quiet, I experience life in a different way. I can’t articulate it, perhaps because there aren’t words to describe the exquisite intricacies of life, or because there is fog between my experience and my outward expression. For now, or maybe always, there is just a mass of experience and new knowing that exists for me.

I have new passion and purpose for making a difference. Little pieces are falling into place. In the meantime, as I take stock and heal, I spend my quiet time staring at the ceiling from my frequent place on the couch, knowing that part of me is burning with aliveness. It’s exactly as it’s meant to be.

And the moment I stop wishing for life to be any other way is the moment I will have learned what there is for me to learn from this lesson and I’ll be done with Lyme….and then it will be on to the next lesson.

….during which time I will probably find myself saying, “screw it…I’m eating the cookie.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/sometimes-we-should-eat-the-cookie-lesson-6/feed/8Context is Decisive…Lesson 5http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/context-is-decisive-lesson-5/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/context-is-decisive-lesson-5/#commentsWed, 21 Dec 2011 06:41:15 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=84“The hidden contexts from which we live determine what we see and what we don’t see; what we consider and what we fail to notice; what we are able to do and what seems beyond our reach. In this view, all behavior – all ways of being and acting – are correlated to the context(s) […]

]]>“The hidden contexts from which we live determine what we see and what we don’t see; what we consider and what we fail to notice; what we are able to do and what seems beyond our reach. In this view, all behavior – all ways of being and acting – are correlated to the context(s) from which we live our lives…” ~ Landmark Forum course syllabus

I hate swallowing pills…gulp/swallow…I hate swallowing pills…gulp/swallow. My daily routine revolved around the many supplements I was taking daily, and I complained bitterly to a friend. “And if you are hating each pill,” Cindy said, “how effective do you think they will be for your body, given that energy follows thought?” That abruptly stopped me in my very negative thought track. The context was negative and dis-empowering.

Okay, context is decisive…what can I create? I decided to shift my context to kindness so that each pill I swallowed was an act of kindness towards my body and my immune system. At that particular point in time I had the opportunity to be ‘kind’ to my body about 80 times per day. And yes, it took a bit of practice to really experience it as kindness, in fact, about two weeks of practice.

During my many hours of couch time I took an inventory of acts of kindness to myself in the past. Hmmmm….fail! With my inherited athletic genes I had thoroughly enjoyed competing in many sports, for decades, training hard but rarely nourishing or resting my body appropriately. There was no kindness, just demands upon demands and expectations of performance.

There was a new experience now, softer and gentler, and through my symptoms it was becoming a more prominent experience than the misery.

Funny how we have to learn our lessons repeatedly and in different ways. I have always had a love for chiropractic care, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I landed up in two chiropractic practices that were very specifically wellness practices. Care was provided inside of a wellness model rather than a sickness model. I had the opportunity to be steeped in a wellness education (balanced diet, stress relief, adrenal support, detoxing, neurological system maintenance) and to shift the context I had around health care. And while I was very enthusiastic about the wellness model, there is a difference between knowing something well and actually putting that knowledge into practice under one’s own steam.

There were some days this year when, completely unexpectedly, I awoke feeling totally normal, healthy, energetic…surprised!! They came out of the blue and vanished after a day or two. From these experiences I know that wellness is inside of me.

My health experience shows up somewhere on the wellness spectrum, some days closer to the high end, some days closer to the low end…but either way, it’s a level of wellness that I experience. If I am floundering in the lower end of the spectrum there are things I know to do to improve my ‘rating’. And of course, there are days I subject myself to a sickness context. The difference now is that I am clear that I create that context and subsequent experience.

And so the journey continues, reminding myself that I create the context for my life, because it IS decisive. It is easy to do when I’m feeling pretty well, and a real challenge when some symptom(s) or another is highly activated! The true color of my context is revealed when my feathers are ruffled. That’s when it pays to have people around who hold me accountable for my life experience…and yup, sometimes that is just incredibly annoying…but ultimately they are the best friends I could have. They push me back onto my own two feet, leaving it up to me as to whether I create wellness, kindness and self-responsibility for myself or not. The choice is mine.

(This post dedicated with gratitude to Dr. Lawrence Stern and Dr. Mitch Gordon - wellness chiropractors, both providing experiences, education and support that have been for my higher good)

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/context-is-decisive-lesson-5/feed/2Warriors Cry Too – Lesson 4http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/warriors-cry-too-lesson-4/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/warriors-cry-too-lesson-4/#commentsFri, 16 Dec 2011 19:56:44 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=76“Warrior - a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness.” Aren’t we all warriors at certain times in our lives? When we are fiercely committed to something we engage in the corresponding actions with vigor and tenacity. And even when we stray from the path, we find our way back with […]

]]>“Warrior - a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness.”

Aren’t we all warriors at certain times in our lives? When we are fiercely committed to something we engage in the corresponding actions with vigor and tenacity. And even when we stray from the path, we find our way back with renewed enthusiasm and commitment. It’s a roller coaster ride.

I like to think of myself as a warrior for a variety of reasons. Probably at the top of the list is that if I’m taking something on like a warrior, I will most likely produce the results I desire. And most likely right there next to it is my ego enjoying being all fluffed up and special…look at me…I’m winning! I’m okay with that. It falls into the realm of being human.

And yet, no matter how much ground I’ve gained along the ‘warrior’s path’ back to wellness by taking care of my physicality and searching for my inner lessons, there are times I simply put down all my warrior tools and cry. Today is one of those days.

Creating this blog has re-presenced me to what I’ve learned, and has also given me some snapshots of where I was earlier this year in comparison to where I am now. A lot of ground has been covered and the progress seems noteworthy. And yet, as one simple activity is put back into my life (working out for a 1/2 hour a couple of times a week) I find myself back on my knees with a slow brain. The emotions that arise with this are deep.

With each lesson that’s been revealed I have felt myself catapulted forward into a space of gratitude, and then hungrily, greedily, pushed forward for the next expansion and another fix of spiritual liberation. While I may be a spiritual being having a human experience, I see how I often forget to honor some of the human experiences. And I am, after all, here for the human experience.

Surveying my life as it is now I see a quietness I didn’t have before, a peacefulness with less frenetic activity, and a love of Self that is growing. I experience life most fully in the pause between words and the rest between actions…I am learning to simply BE.

And yet there was a life I once had that was vastly different, one in which I could rush around and do whatever I chose, over achieve, over do, over spend, over eat, over drink, under sleep, over train…you get the picture. It was fun and it was stressful and it was out of balance. I am not sorry it is over, and yet I feel the loss.

It is like I have lost a close friend, one who was not always good to me but who was always there, through the good times and the bad. I have let her go without regret, and now I simply miss her.

With my wellness-warrior face set aside, I cry as I mourn the loss. Some friendships survive only a finite period of time, serving a purpose, and then it is time to let go and move on. Some days I struggle to let go of the person I used to be, afraid she will be forgotten somehow. In time she may be forgotten, but for sure she will always be loved. My warrior-heart tells me this.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/warriors-cry-too-lesson-4/feed/2I Created My Life, Just As It Is – Lesson 3http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/i-created-my-life-just-as-it-is-lesson-3/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/i-created-my-life-just-as-it-is-lesson-3/#respondWed, 14 Dec 2011 20:39:53 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=65He patiently shared information, explaining how the immune system works, the impact of ‘leaky gut syndrome’ on the function of the brain, the integration of body, mind and spirit. My naturopath talked and I listened. On my brain’s worst days, he sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown…wah, wah, wah. And somehow, what he shared […]

]]>He patiently shared information, explaining how the immune system works, the impact of ‘leaky gut syndrome’ on the function of the brain, the integration of body, mind and spirit. My naturopath talked and I listened. On my brain’s worst days, he sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown…wah, wah, wah. And somehow, what he shared was being stored away for when I was ready to remember and deal with the information. And, not only was he a great source of scientific information, he was also a space I simply healed in. No judgement, listening to what I was dealing with, accepting and supporting my decisions to ‘add’ to his protocols (because I was ravenously researching treatments)…all to empower me in my journey. This is generosity, this is someone granting and honoring my ‘being’, this is someone committed to my wellness…this is love, the Naturopathic Physician’s Oath in action.

A Healing Vigil.

From my place on the couch and in the quietness of doing nothing, Gary’s words eventually made their way into my consciousness for contemplation. I felt my ego stand up and say some choice words, like WTF! My ego, so desperate to win, to be right and hold me hostage as a victim was not happy. But I was in ‘being’ mode (see Lesson 1), where nothing is wrong and all was well with the world. In this state there is no blame to place, there is simply what is.

It unfolded and revealed itself: The human body is designed to heal itself. I was not sick because a bacteria-infected tick had bitten me, I was sick because my immune system was compromised and not in a position to do what it was designed to do when the tick bit me, which was support my body to fight the bacterial invasion and heal itself.

And then a question arose, “Who is responsible for my immune system, for the state of my well being and the level of wellness existing in MY body?” Well…that would be ME!

This realization did not land in my consciousness in a way that made me feel wrong or at fault, it simply landed and planted instant roots. I couldn’t shake it off and to be perfectly honest, didn’t want to. It was a ‘Wow Moment’…I have created my life just as it is! I had laid the foundation myself.

I’d already tried on the victim outfit, and let me tell you, I wore it well. I cried because I had ‘lost’ my life, was afraid, was very ill, and I felt sorry for myself. And rightly so I might add. This disease was no picnic and my life had been dramatically altered. And then, another brain-burp that surfaced the question, “So, how’s this working for you, this being a victim?” Let’s see….uh…well…not so well.

And so I wore the self-responsible outfit each day, examining the seams, the buttons, the experience I had in it. What a difference! The whining and ceaseless chatter went quiet in my head. The scenery of my life was no longer through the image of a tick and various spirochetes. Now it was MY life again, and there was something to be responsible for; the rebuilding of my immune system. And because I don’t know everything there is to know, even though I sometimes pretend I do, I leaned on experts in various natural healing modalities to support me.

I am no saint and I am a perfectly imperfect human being. There were periods of time when I stepped back into the victim outfit and did some serious whining (that I raised to a high art form), but those periods of time lessened and before long I got tired of my own complaints.

Of course, I had a lot of questions for myself. What had I been doing to compromise my immune system? What could I have done differently? Did it matter? What now?

Well, there is just no rest for the wicked…those questions were the bridge to my next lesson.

(This post is dedicated to Dr. Gary Gruber with my gratitude for his ongoing support)

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/i-created-my-life-just-as-it-is-lesson-3/feed/0Meeting Myself Where I Am – Lesson 2http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meeting-myself-where-i-am/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meeting-myself-where-i-am/#commentsTue, 06 Dec 2011 17:47:20 +0000https://lymethriving.wordpress.com/?p=40Patterns and habits rule when I’m not living consciously. That tends to play out with me trying to get everything done so that I can then take time out to rest, but only when everything is done. It’s funny just to write that out. When is everything ever done? With my stubbornness fully intact, I […]

]]>Patterns and habits rule when I’m not living consciously. That tends to play out with me trying to get everything done so that I can then take time out to rest, but only when everything is done. It’s funny just to write that out. When is everything ever done?

With my stubbornness fully intact, I attempt the impossible anyway:

Empty my email inbox - my brain jumbles the words of each sentence, remembering only the last word I read and dropping the previous ones out of the sentence, tripling the amount of time it takes to read and comprehend each email

Get work projects done (web site development) - requests that require mental gymnastics to decipher…wow, was I that smart that I could whip through this work before?

Grocery shopping - what’s with all the choices on the shelves for each item? So overwhelming!

Take the dogs for a walk - stop and rest every 20 yards

Cook a meal - I’d rather just nibble on a bowl of chips and sip on wine

Somewhere inside me there is a sigh of relief as I surrender to what I need in the moment, rest. I lay back down on the couch and allow my eyes to wander slowly from one scene the the next. I look out the sliding door at the rocks and trees in the backyard. It’s beautiful outside. I stare at the ceiling with a blank mind. I look over at the dogs, one sleeping on the ‘dog’s chair’ the other at my feet on the couch. They exude peace, love and acceptance. I focus back on my self. As I lie motionless and empty minded, I feel surprisingly good. I don’t experience the fatigue or pain. There is just quiet, and it feels really good.

“If I feel good,” I say to myself, “then I should get up and do something…be productive.” I roll off the couch and attempt to get something done, anything. The fatigue hits me like a massive cloud of sodden cotton balls, my limbs feel heavy and my brain goes into slow motion. Ugh! I drop myself back onto the couch. In a few minutes I feel good again.

This is familiar somehow. I drift outside of myself and contemplate. It makes it’s way forward from the seemingly inaccessible recesses of my memories, my training on how to coach people….”meet the person where they are in the moment.”

There is something about being ‘gotten’, being listened to without judgement, that validates us. To share with another person what we are dealing with and have them really listen, is a golden moment. It is an acknowledgment and an honoring.

The pieces fall together and I have the visceral experience of being ‘gotten’ by myself. Where I am is fatigued, not well. When I meet myself there and honor it, I simply lie on the couch. I feel good, I feel complete and whole. As soon as I begin to get busy with doing things, no matter how simple, I experience the gap between what my body is capable of and what I am demanding or expecting my body to do. In that gap is suffering.

I become aware of how I have not met myself where I am at, ever. In the past I have barreled through, stepped over, forced my way to DO what I felt should be done, rather than just be with myself exactly where I am, with no apologies necessary.

Each day I have this opportunity to meet myself where I am, to honor my body and my mind in the quiet it has been yearning for. This is a new experience for me. I practice it repeatedly. The practice evolves and transforms and I learn to appreciate what it feels like to honor myself in this small way. I’m surprised by how nourishing an experience it is and I feel the roots of my Self grow a little deeper.

Just as well and just in time, as the next lesson will sorely try my grounding.

]]>http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/meeting-myself-where-i-am/feed/6What You Resist Persists – Lesson 1http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/what-you-resist-persists/
http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/what-you-resist-persists/#commentsMon, 05 Dec 2011 01:43:52 +0000http://www.lymethriving.com/blog/?p=13The fog in my brain swirled endlessly, my head felt twice it’s size and weight. Every joint in my body wept and my spine felt like it was made of wood, unable to bend in any direction when I awoke each morning. Every day I waded through the sludge of deep fatigue, sometimes wondering how […]

]]>The fog in my brain swirled endlessly, my head felt twice it’s size and weight. Every joint in my body wept and my spine felt like it was made of wood, unable to bend in any direction when I awoke each morning. Every day I waded through the sludge of deep fatigue, sometimes wondering how I would make it from one room to the next. Every corner of my body seemed broken and I felt like I was dying.

With tunnel vision focus I aimed all my energy on not dying. I dragged myself to five appointments each week, visiting two different chiropractors, receiving bio-resonance and massages, seeing my naturopath, and in between the appointments and sleeping, swallowed 80 supplement pills a day (a lot of them unnecessarily self-prescribed), juiced fruits and vegetables, and filtered gallons of water to drink. I stubbornly hung on to drinking a glass of wine (or two) in the evenings…something may as well be enjoyable. And all the time I was quietly repeating in my head, “I will not die, I will not die.”

My place on the couch with one of my ‘nursemaids’.

The rest of my day was spent on the couch, wrapped in blankets and lying on a magnetic pad. I had never reached out to the Lyme community for support before (I don’t need anyone’s help - ha!), but this was different…I felt like I was dying, and miserably, I surrendered to support. I connected via Facebook and a Yahoo group into large online communities of people struggling with Chronic Lyme and tick-borne illnesses, and read their postings with wide-eyes. These folks knew their stuff, sharing information like scientists, knowledgeable about testing, and a myriad of treatment protocols being offered across the board, from allopathic to natural. I felt like a kindergartner that had just landed in grad school.

With my sorely challenged brain I followed their lead, researching fanatically, unable to mentally retrieve all I had read, but continuing my research anyway. I had to stay alive.

I began to post questions and learn, sometimes receiving support, sometimes offering it. That always felt good, the giving and receiving. I was repeatedly shocked to learn about what other people were dealing with, and I became committed to shed light on this overlooked community and disease.

One day my withering brain burped out a quote I’d heard a hundred times before, “What you resist persists.” Aargh! How had I not seen what I was doing?! I don’t know how it happens or if there are some special steps to the place of surrender, but remembering that quote was part of it. I made peace with dying. It was not surrendering to the illness, it was not a wanting to die, it was simply making peace with myself, knowing that should I die, something good could come out of it. Lives would be immediately and deeply impacted, and word about Lyme and its possible outcome would be known to more people, and perhaps make a difference to someone else. I could live or die with that.

There was no longer anything to resist. My mind disentangled itself from the energy drain of resistance and fear, leaving an empty space for something else to show up in. For me it was peace.

With the new found peace, unbeknownst to me, I was perfectly poised to receive my next lesson.